Teen Titans GO!
by EastSideBebop
Summary: There are Heroes and then there Titans! The Angelic Lycan Blaze, the newest member of the elite Titans West is falling for Mystic, Robin's old friend from Gotham! But with Trigon back what WON'T he do to save the World? 1st in the "Blaze" stories
1. A Tale of two Cities

_Gotham…_

The Dark city, home of the Dark Knight, a place of commerce and high society, of crime and law…

But like any city, it is a city of people, from the rich like Bruce Wayne or Tomas Malloy to the average Joe and the public servants such as Police commissioner Gordon, or the lowly homeless children that populate the streets of too many large cities…

She had been one of those forgotten kids on the street once...

Her mother, a young college student without any family, with books to pay for and a lack of food… what had been a onetime desperate act of a scared girl, turned into her ruin…

Then one day, a lone whore found that she had taken one too many risks, and nine months later, a little girl, with only her poor, frightened mother to care for her, came into this world…

On a day, almost nineteen years ago…

_Jump..._

Center of the metahuman world, a young, vibrant, hopeful city, busting at the seams at all times, expanding at the limit of technology and human knowledge, a kind, friendly place, where everyone is your friend and hope never dies… a stark contrast to many other cities… Like Gotham…

And like many large cities, Jump had Heroes… but not just any kind of Heroes, no Jump had Heroes that where just like it; Young, brave, hope filled heroes, Heroes that the people, both average and extraordinary, loved dearly…

He had been sired by two such extraordinary people, but, despite the deep love they shared, the swift nature of there relationship put great strain on the whole family and all their friends… and after a few epic encounters, and a heartfelt meeting, love won out…

His father, a young man who's family bore a mighty curse and prophecy that he embodied and fulfilled, a tower of fiery passion and might, his mother, an Angel, trapped by a cross-bread mortal body, the strain of a long, hard life washed away by her lovers passion. Their offspring could only be the stuff of legend…

And seven years ago, a legend like no other was born…

They names are Mystic, and Blaze… And they are some of the greatest Titans to ever walk the earth…


	2. In the Beginning Part 1

wow... I did this in like two hours! CRAZYNESS!

I own only Blaze and his family, Destiny is Owned by Alexgoose...

Everything else is DC, CN and WB...

Enjoy!

ESB

* * *

Titans GO!

In the Beginning Part 1

Jump City…

Sirens wailed off in the distance as the man ran like his very life depended on it, and in many ways, it did…

Clutching a large brown sack in his left hand, and an old worn crowbar in his right, the scruffy faced man dashed around a corner and hid in the shadows of an alley.

Pressing into the wall of a brick apartment building, he waited and watched as a Police cruiser sped by, red lights flashing… "… Heh… lousy pigs…"

He slowly started to walk deeper into the alleyway and dig into his sack to admire his loot when a soft whistling noise reached his ear… A split second before a small, heavy object smashed his hand, knocking the crowbar to the street… "Ow! What tha?!?" a pair of white soulless eyes reflected an overhead light ever so slightly… "Wha… H-how… W-who?" A young boy, fifteen, maybe sixteen years at the oldest, dressed in a red armored tunic, green gloves, with a muted gold belt and fitted green leggings with black and gray armored shoes topped by a gold lined black cape, stepped into the pale light of the alleyway, "It's! IT'S YOU! What are you doing here?!?! This ain't yer' town!" The boy spoke with a steely, slightly raspy voice; "I decided to go solo… so this IS my town…" Robin, the boy wonder, the respected partner to the greatly feared Batman, stood at the fullest of his five foot ten inch, one-hundred and eighty plus pound frame and pulled out a new bird-a-rang and unfolded it wings… "Are you going easy or hard?" the man hesitated then shrugged… Robin glared, "Whatever…"

In seconds, the man was hog-tied and hung by his ankles from a fire escape, dangling over a full dumpster…

One month later…

"So I hear you have a team now…" Richard Grayson nodded at the video feed; "That's right…" "Whatever happened to flying solo?" Even without the mask on, and from over three thousand miles away on a video screen, Bruce Wayne AKA the Batman, was an imposing person… his very image demanded respect… Or as the Batman, fear…

"I felt that this was the best course of action… You yourself said that the Justice League is one of the best assets you could ever ask for… I figured that this was along the same lines…" Dick hated to defend himself like that, but at this point in their now strained relationship, he and Bruce where on best terms when they where being overly diplomatic with each other… Bruce answered with his deep, rich baritone "Your right, the League is a great asset, but any asset can be used against you…"

_Dammit! There he goes again!_ Grayson took a quick breath and nodded grimly… Like Bruce, Dick didn't flinch easy, but that was a dirty low down blow to dig at him like that, and Bruce knew it just as much as Dick felt it…

"That's something I pointed out to the team early on… and we're in agreement that we should keep watch for anything, or any_one_ who may undermine us, both as a team and as individuals…"

An awkward silence followed that, and then Wayne looked to the side and then stepped over slightly; "Alfred and the girls want to say hello…" "Master Grayson! Good to see you in fine health! I do hope you've not given into you sweet tooth too much…" Dick smiled, "No Alfred, I've kept to my one Butterfinger a week… but thank you for checking." The kind, older man bowed out as a redheaded twenty something appeared on the screen, flashing a big bright smile; "Hiya' Dicky! How's Jump? Is it everything they say on the news?" Grayson chuckled lightly. "Hey Barb, yeah, it's all that and a bag of chips, if it keeps growing like it is, this place will be bigger than Gotham in ten years… So if your ever in the neighborhood, feel free to beat down on a few perps…" Gordon smiled and rolled her eyes; "Sure thing, I'll do that next time on the west side of the country… Laters Dick!" "Bye Barbra…" The curved redhead glided off the screen and a few seconds later a small, slim curly golden brown haired girl a few years younger than himself sat down in the chair and looked at him on the screen; "… Hi Robin…" her voice was shy and quiet, and her ocean blue eyes moved slowly, thoughtfully from side to side as she blushed slightly and waved at him; "How is there? Did you make any new friends?" Richard smiled warmly at the girl; "Hi Destiny… Yeah I did, and it's nice over here, its a bit warmer… I think you might like it here; the people are really kind of nice and the weather's really calm most of the time…" she smiled a sunbeam at him and nodded her understanding, "That's great Robin… I—We all miss you a lot… Will you come back and visit some time?" the unmasked, boy wonder smiled, his dark blue eyes steady and clear; "I hope to Destiny, in fact, I may come back for the fourth of July… So start practicing so you can help us with the fire works show, okay?" the girl nodded slowly, almost as if she was ashamed of what he had referenced… "I… I will… Bye Robin…" the girl jumped out of the seat and ran off screen just before Bruce walked back and then sat down again... "And you talk about me? Really Dick…" "I'm not going to verbally butt heads with you over her Bruce… I've said all I'm can and am going to say, as have you… Anything else is just wasting time covering ground we've been over…"

Bruce gave Dick a careful look and then shifted like nothing had happened; "Good job with the Gordanians' I'm impressed with the team you've pulled together… The League will need standard biographies on all of you… Your's will need to be updated as will Beast Boy's and we'll need three new ones for the others… Green Lantern and I will expect them by the end of the week… Do you have a name for your team yet?" Dick slowly put his mask back on and nodded slowly; "We do… The Teen Titans…"


	3. In the Beginning Part 2

Okay, First off I must thank the lovely Dazi for starting this off and for helping me with this idea… yeah btw's there will be some overlap with The Story of Fire Wolf so if it seems like you've read some of this before.. its cause you have… heh...

Insert standard disclaimer here: "Standard Disclaimer"

Enjoy!

ESB

* * *

_I can take the rain on the roof of this empty house__  
__That don't bother me__  
__I can take a few tears now and then and just let them out__  
__I'm not afraid to cry every once in a while__  
__Even though going on with you gone still upsets me__  
__There are days every now and again I pretend I'm ok__  
__But that's not what gets me_

Her light baby blue eyes were dull, that spark of life that used to be found in them was gone, long gone. Her body was no longer held up elegantly, each small stride was now just a shuffling step. She didn't look like a proud tigress within an Angel, she looked like a confused girl sporting wings that just looked out of place. She looked about her, at the men whom watched the dancers. She had returned to the Dirty Kitten to see if she could take her mind off everything in her life by getting lost in the music and doing what she loved most but her interest in dancing had faded and now she only saw what those old women saw. A poor girl looking for attention anywhere she could. A harsh, wavering sigh passed her pale lips as she pushed off the bar, moving around the outside of the room, staying to the shadows. The guard for the night, a good acquaintance of hers, waved to her though she only gave him a curious glance before staring back at the ground…

_It's hard to deal with the pain of losing you everywhere I go__  
__But I'm doin' It__  
__It's hard to force that smile when I see our old friends and I'm alone__  
__Still Harder__  
__Getting up, getting dressed, livin' with this regret__  
__But I know if I could do it over__  
__I would trade give away all the words that I saved in my heart__  
__That I left unspoken_

She didn't consider many people friends. They were all acquaintances. It seemed all of the people she considered friends. Hell she had two friends and she dragged them both into a love triangle before she lost them both. She opened the fire door and exited into the alleyway. As the door clicked closed behind her she let a distressed, pained and confused yell erupt from her throat before she collapsed against the cold, rough wall, sliding into a sitting position. Her eyes stung from holding back the tears, her whole body still hurt, her throat was now closed with the struggle of emotions. What the hell was she going to do? She was meant to have gotten away to organize her thoughts and now she was more confused then ever.

Sometimes... sometimes she wished that mama had taken her to heaven with her….

_What hurts the most__  
__Is being so close__  
__And having so much to say__  
__And watching you walk away__  
__And never knowing__  
__What could have been__  
__And not seeing that loving you__  
__Is what I was trying to do…_

Blaze had been sitting on the roof of his father's new apartment looking at the sky when he felt a tug at his heart, and he stood up listening at the sounds of the city...

_I walk a lonely road  
The only one that I have ever known  
Don't know were it goes  
But it's home to me and I walk alone  
I walk this empty street  
On the Boulevard of broken dreams  
Were the city sleeps  
And I'm the only one and I walk alone  
I walk alone I walk alone  
_

He felt a slight pained chill run down his back as he heard a pain-filled, lost sounding cry... it was his mother...

_I walk alone and I walk a- _

My shadows the only one that walks beside me  
My shallow hearts the only thing that's beating  
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me  
'Till then I'll walk alone 

After flying at the echo's of the sound, Blaze landed in an alleyway in a part of town he had never been to or even seen...  
His lean, strong, 14 year-old Anthro-wolf frame moved down the dark alleyway slowly as he walked to the sobbing form of his mother, sitting on the ground crying...

_I'm walking down the line  
That divides me somewhere in my mind  
On the border line of the edge  
And where I walk alone  
Read between the lines  
What's fucked up and every thing's alright  
Check my vital signs to know I'm still alive  
And I walk alone  
I walk alone I walk alone _

I walk alone and I walk a-

My shadows the only one that walks beside me  
My shallow hearts the only thing that's beating  
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me  
'Till then I'll walk alone... 

_Ah..ah.. _

Ah..ah..

Ah..ah..

I walk alone and I walk a-

I walk this empty street  
On the Boulevard of broken dreams  
Were the city sleeps  
And I'm the only one and I walk a-

My shadows the only one that walks beside me  
My shallow hearts the only thing that's beating  
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me  
'Till then I'll walk alone… 

"Momma? Momma, are you okay? Are you hurt?" Blaze was greatly worried about his mother and his light baby-blue eyes, a gift from his mother, shimmered with concern as he crouched down next to one of the most important people in his short life...

Angel's breathing was slow and ragged, she could barely get a breath past her straining throat. Her head was hurting so bad from everything she was hiding from the world, tears, pain, silent screams. She couldn't deal anymore. She could picture anyone finding her here… But she didn't want anyone to find her here…

Especially the person who did find her… The tears had forced their way past her eyelids and down her flushed cheeks as her stare, which had been upon the blank wall before her, was taken to the lean form of the anthro-boy, her son...

She still didn't think that sounded right; _Her_ son… She wasn't a suitable mother, she never would be; it seemed she could barely look after herself, how much less a young boy?

Her lips parted to speak though her voice refused to pass into the air. She inhaled deeply, sucking the air into her lungs before she forced the breathy words out as she exhaled: "Y-you shouldn't be in this part of town…" William nodded lightly as he crouched down on all fours, a worried look on his fur covered face…

"I know, but I'll be fine... What about you Momma? Are you okay?" he gasped when he got a good look at her, "Your crying!" he leaned in and started wiping the tears away from his mothers eyes, as his own started to form...  
"Momma, you're not safe here! What if Slade or someone found you?" The young wolf-boy's voice was still cracking at times and it was cracking horribly at this time, due to his distress... "Momma... please, tell me what's going on..."

Seeing his mother in this state broke poor Blazes heart, but he was much more concerned with his mother's well being than his own.

She felt the tears creating cold streams down her face and she turned her head slightly as he wiped away her tears, her own hand cleaning off her face before she began fighting the urge to let the water fall from her eyes again; "I'm fine...What interest would Slade have with me?"  
It wasn't really a question, more of a statement as she looked back toward the wall she had previously been staring at. She didn't mean to be rude to the child but she really couldn't watch him at the moment….  
"It's nothing for you to worry about. I'll figure it out" She sobbed lightly as he sat there, huddled on the ground.

Blaze shifted his weight slightly and was kneeling when his mother asked him what Slade would want with her... and he honestly didn't know...  
"I... I don't know… I guess... it was just the first evil name that popped in my head..." he bowed his head slightly as his wolf pup ears drooped slightly, a slight whine sounding in his throat...  
Blaze sat there after his mother spoke, his head bowed and his eyes closed...  
"Momma... Why do you hate me?" young William's voice was barely a whisper as his own tears slowly started to fall...

Angel had been chewing the side of her cheek when he spoke, her eyes being downcast toward the ground. The sounds from around her, cars in the street, people within the clubs, everything was multiplied until she heard his whispered voice…

It felt like a sledgehammer had been swung into the side of her head, her insides plummeting. She looked toward the pup, eyes wide in surprise and confusion before she instinctively wrapped her arms around his shoulders, pulling him into her and kissing his forehead as her tears began to roll down her cheeks once more, landing upon his hair; "I don't hate you. I _love_ you. I… just don't think I'm the best mother material…" Her voice was choked in her throat and shallow, her chest tight as her breath weighed her down… _'Oh mama… what do I do?'_ she silently prayed as she firmly held her son in her arms…

William returned her hug and squeezed tightly as her tears ran into the spiky mop of fur on his head, and his tears spilled onto her shirt and arms; "But... you are perfect! Your MY momma! But your scared! Why? Momma, Why are you so scared? Don't you know that dad and Kit and I love you?!?" Blaze was frightened for the first time in his life, he didn't know what was going on, he didn't understand all the forces at work in his life, and the life of his family members... yet...

Angel felt the guilt filter into her heavily as she felt her shirt and arms get wet with his tears. She pulled his head back softly, looking down at him before kissing his wet cheekbones. She whispered into his ear, her voice not able to get any louder, "I know, I know. There are just things in my life right now which are confusing me… But I'll always love you and your sister no matter what happens." She pulled him into her lap, hugging him like she expected him to evaporate from her grip…

Blaze closed his eyes as Angel gently kissed his face, his arms holding her closely...  
She looked into his eyes and spoke softly and he nodded...  
Blaze smiled slightly, and answered; "We love you too Momma... so much..."

They sat there holding each other for a time...  
A smile had finally found its way to her face as she held her son, feeling that he was one of the only people she didn't have to worry about leaving her. Well, she preyed she didn't have to worry about him leaving her. She had faded into a nice little continent line before a voice snapped her back into reality and she realized where they were. She should have taken Blaze away as soon as he arrived, she knew this was a horrible area, especially for a child but she was too stupid to think about moving. She was being selfish, dwelling in her depression while leaving them both in danger, but then Blaze and his sixth sense suddenly kicked in...

"Well what have we here? Some whore about to do a little boy? heh, nice bitch, now how about you fork over your cash and give old Jim here a good blow..."  
The leather clad thug pulled out a large switchblade and clicked it open; "Now... get lost freak boy..."  
"No..." Blaze had moved from his mothers arms to a crouching position between her and the man, his face was blank but his eyes where clear and intense, shimmering with a protective glow...  
"Move you little fuck!" the man swung his boot out and kicked Blaze in the side, knocking him over, but Blaze simply stood up to the fullest of his five foot height and stared at the man; "No... Leave my momma alone..."  
Her eyes were narrow as she looked up at the man. She put her hands upon the ground ready to push herself up to confront him before Blade moved. _'NO!'_ Her voice seemed to catch in her throat as everything before her moved in slow motion yet she felt weighed down and couldn't move. _'BLAZE! DON'T!'_ Her lips moved to scream out the words but they never formed past her lips.

The man had stood there, looking at Blaze and Angel, until he rushed forward, and jabbed his knife into Blaze's side causing the boy to yelp and for blue blood to flow from his ribs...  
"Fucking freak…" the man shoved the young wolf-boy to the ground and advanced on the now terrified half-angel, his dirty hands reaching for her soft shuddering body…

And everything around Jessica stopped... Her eyes watered, a slight, strained scream passing her lips, the only sound she could form. She saw the blade being jabbed at William's ribs and hitting it's target. She tried to get to her feet but her whole body couldn't move. She was paralyzed in fear. She didn't care what happened to her, she would have given anything for that blade to be in her instead of Blaze. Hot tears once again streamed down her face, her throat refusing her to breath as she watched the blue blood trailing down his blue fur. _'__Pathetic. PATHETIC! That's all I am. Can't even look after my own son. What kind of mother am I?'_

As he came toward her, she stared at his side, struggling to breathe, tears falling, and body shaking. Panic attack…

"NO!" Blaze shouted as the man moved on Angel his hands almost on her...

They never got there as Blaze bodily slammed the man to he ground and burned his head off with his own blue fire bursting from his hands...

Will crawled back to his mother, a slow trickle of dark blue blood flowed down his fur covered side, and the stench of burned flesh, bone and organs filling the air…  
"Momma... are you hurt?" his breath was a bit heavy but he seemed to not notice the wound that was slowly healing as he knelt next to his mother

"B-Blaze?"

"I'm okay Momma..." Blaze was starting to feel the pain in his side, but it was nothing compared to the pain he felt coming from his mother...  
"No momma! Your not pathetic! Your scared that's all!"  
Blaze moved till he was in front of his mother, holding her shoulders, gently, as his pale eyes glowed softly...  
He gently kissed his mother on the forehead before helping her to her feet; "We need to go home Momma... You're not safe here..."  
She struggled to her feet, her legs extremely unsure under her and she was glad for Blaze's help as she walked shakily. She had no objection to going home right now, she really didn't fancy staying any longer and she wanted to try and relax… It felt like the whole world had come crashing down upon her chest. She couldn't breath and her throat was tight. It felt like she was being strangled and she was mentally strangling herself.

He took her arm and draped it over his shoulders, holding her weight with ease, and leading her down the alley to the street...  
Blaze whispered into her ear gently; "I'm not going to leave you momma... you do what you need to, but I'm not leaving you alone... you need me just like I need you..."  
he gently kissed her again as they started walking to Angel's apartment...

As she heard Blaze speaking to her (Which was hard through the abuse she was yelling at herself within her head) she relaxed a little, looking up at him with confusion in her eyes, stronger than it had ever been… "I… I'm so sorry William… I'm… I'm so sorry…" she simply couldn't think or form words anymore…

"It's okay momma… I'm here…"

* * *

I know… I know… 

Songs are "What Hurts the Most" by Rascal Flats and "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" by Green day…

But you already knew that huh?

Read and Review pour favour!


	4. In the Beginning Part 3

_Flashback…_

"Violence is part of life, but obviously, that does not mean that it is the only answer…"

Dressed in a loose fitting white Gi, Bruce stood in the middle of a large circle that had been marked out on the cold stone floor of the bat-cave with black and white paint…

The "ring" as it was called, was marked in four rings, the outer ring was about thirty yards wide, the first middle ring was twenty the second ten, and the inner ring three yards wide...

Three, young people sat on a bench about five yards away, each in workout clothing, of varying colors… they watched every move the unmasked dark Knight made as he slowly turned, his body in a battle stance, his voice clear and even; "When fighting a single opponent, you have the luxury of choosing the terms on which you will fight…"

A red shirted Dick Grayson stood and stepped into the ring and started to circle, his hands up in a defensive manner, his knees bent and his back curved forward slightly…

"Attack!"

The order had barely left his mouth before Robin was sailing through the air, a powerful flying roundhouse kick aimed right at Batman's head…

With the speed and grace of a tiger, Batman sidestepped the blow and delivered a swift elbow to Robin's left leg, throwing his off balance and cramping his calf…

Robin landed awkwardly but still managed to roll out of it and spring back onto his feet...

"A powerful attack is only useful if you can make it connect… Common street thugs are easy targets if you get the drop on them… Even if they see you coming, you can take them down, sometimes with a single blow…" Bruce side stepped Dick's follow-up punch, and then blocked the following combo…

"Next." Grayson stepped back and then walked out of the ring as Gordon walked in, an easy sway to her gait...

"You tried your best Robin, don't worry…" Destiny whispered to the boy wonder as he sat down and huffed; "Yeah, but it didn't do any good…" Destiny looked at him with her clear blue eyes, "No but Batman's a lot better at fighting that most of the people you do fight…" Dick gave a smile nodded; "Yeah… you're right…" "Waahhh!" Bat-girl landed, crouched on her feet just out side of the ring, "Dang… Nice deflection Bruce… I'll keep my eye out for it next time…"

Bruce nodded; "I hope so… Next…" Destiny gulped slightly and then slowly walked into the ring… she stood there in a simple defensive position, her arms up, hands protecting her face and mid-section…

"Attack!"

Destiny started slightly, and then tilted her head; "But you've only taught me how to defend… How… What… What do I do?"  
Bruce arched an eyebrow and glared at the young girl; "I said attack… you have three seconds to do that, then I make my move…"  
Destiny blinked then slowly started to advance on him, her eyes wide and her pulse racing…

"Times up." With a blur of motion Wayne lunged at the girl and with a soft "thump" of sound, hit her with two fingers on her left temple… she crumpled to the ground dazed; "Ow…"

"Dammit Bruce!" Dick was on his feet and standing on the line that marked the outer ring, "Stay back Dick…" the tall well built man warned as he stood there watching the young girl slowly stir… "Hey Bruce, did you have to knock her on her ah—um... Butt?" Barbra said as she slowly walked up to Dick's side, a curious look in her sky-blue eyes, "I mean, she's only like what? Thirteen?" "She's old enough…" Bruce's tone was flat and firm, there was no arguing with him now…

"What happened?" Destiny sat up holding the side of her head, a slight scowl on her face as she started to piece it together… "You hesitated Destiny…" Bruce said as he stood there looking his charges, his pupils, over and nodding… "… You can never hesitate when you're fighting… The next time it might be for your very life…"

Destiny nodded her understanding as she slowly stood and shook her head clear, "Okay… But how am I suppose to attack when I only know how to throw a simple punch?" Dick looked at Bruce; it was a valid question, but Bruce seemed to think that she had missed the point; "That only matters if you let it… But, I'm sure that Dick wouldn't mind teaching you some of the finer points…" Bruce nodded at him and then stepped out of the ring, "I have some work to do, I want you three to train for another hour, then you're free till dinner…" he walked up a set of stairs to an upper level of the cave, a slight smile hidden by his turned face and the shadows of the cave…


	5. In the Beginning Part 4

yeah, so like i knowthat this is a little... disjointed... but this is ground work that needs to be layed... enjoy!

ESB

* * *

_Flashback…(HEY! Lay off!)_

"I can't believe you William! After your father and I explained everything to you and then begged you to stay here, you leave and go to the mall in the middle of your first rut and…" the pale skinned Angelic woman closed her sky-blue eyes and huffed loudly as her son sat on the couch, his head hung and ears laid down, full of shame… "You go on a make-out spree! We taught you better than that!" His father stood there and then gently sighed and raised his head; "Angel..." "SHUT UP!" she yelled at him, her eyes sparking as she got up in the demi-god's face… no mean feat considering that she was only five foot seven and he was seven foot five, "Max, you where the one smiling when Beast Boy called and told us that he found YOUR son lip-locking with some little Latino slut!" Wolf held his hands up and shushed his ranting wife; "Now Jessica, that's not fair. She was just a little fourteen year old fan girl of mine that…" "shut up…" "… recognized Blaze and started talking to him…" Poor William at this point was slumped over, his bare, fury muscled torso bent and his wolf-boy face drawn up in embarrassment… "… And he, being in rut, kissed her, and as you well know, a fourteen year old girl is just as hormonally driven as a boy, so Will is not wholly to blame."  
Angel glared at Wolf and he simply shrugged… "No…" William spoke up, his voice a touch cracked and soft; "Dad… Momma's right; I'm the one who screwed up… I left the apartment, I when to the mall, knowing that there'd be lots of girls there, and I stayed there and talked to Marie until… I couldn't help it… I knew better and I didn't do it… I'm sorry…" his mother sighed, and his father nodded, a light smile on his fury lips; "I'm proud of you Will, to speak up and take responsibility by admitting fault is the right thing…" Angel sat next to her not so little boy and hugged him; "I'm sorry I yelled and raised such a fuss… I just don't want you or your sister making the same mistakes I did… I know it's hard for you, you've grown up faster than anyone should ever have to…" she kissed his fuzzy gray cheek and sighed again; "Go to your room and stay there until you're not girl crazy anymore." The young wolf-boy nodded and slowly sulked up the wrought iron stairs to the loft where his room was located…  
"Was I too hard on him?" the half-angel asked, her strong slender wings drooping, her anthro-wolf husband sat next to her and gently rubbed her shoulder; "No… you where both right, and wrong on this… hell, I was wrong to think he was going to be able to control himself… but there's hope…"

"Are you okay?" a slim, young cat-girl, with short brown and black striped fur, long black hair and dark, royal blue eyes stood in his doorway, holding her arms just below her blossoming chest... He looked up at his twin sister and mumbled; "Yeah… I think so…"  
Christina walked up to his curled up body, laying on a large messy bed in the corner of the otherwise neat room… she sat there looking at him, then sighing, she lay next her brother, bigger and older than her by only a slim margin, she still was the one who was called the maiden of Wisdom… and it showed…  
"Don't worry Will, there was no real harm done, and besides; you'll have to deal with this again, and again, so you'll figure it out…" She gave him a soft lick on the cheek and then curled up tight against his side and dozed with him… his thoughts a mess of chaos, slowly fading to a clam sleep…


	6. Fire and Crossways

Sorry the last one was so short! the next two more than make up for it!  
Thank you Destiny for letting me use your charrie in this story! Kudos for life!

So like now where getting into it! hope you all enjoy it!

ESB

* * *

_Present day…_

The night was clear and cool, a light breeze carried the sea air over the coast and into the city… the stars where shining brightly and Argent was enjoying an evening fly over the beach…

Suddenly, a blue flaming portal opened over Jump City...  
And out of it tumbled a large by huge black and red Dragon chasing a Gray Anthro-Wolf...

"You will not interfere with lord Trigon's plans!" the Dragon shrieked, it's maw like mouth full of jagged red teeth...

"I won't interfere! I'll STOP THEM!" The Anthro yelled back as he flew on translucent blue spirit wings just out of the dragons reach...

"Your words mean nothing angelic half-bread! Legion may not have defeated you, but Dra-Gar will!"  
The Dragon shot a beam of dark red energy at the Wolf like being hitting him in the back and knocking him to the ground...

"Ahhh!" yelled the Wolf-boy as he hit the sandy ground with a "thud"... he lay on the ground, in a small crater on the beach, not far form an amusement park on a doc over looking the bay...

"You are nothing like you father! You are weak! You will fail! I will kill you then rape your sister and mother and they will bear my offspring... And then your home world will bow to me!"  
The dragon never got to continue his speech, as the Anthro Wolf suddenly leaped up and savagely kicked the dragon in the head, knocking it back a good fifty feet...

"If... You... DARE..." The wolf-boy was shaking with rage, his baby blue eyes now aglow with a light blue fire...  
The Dragon rose up and swung it's massive clawed fist at the ground where the Wolf-boy stood...  
It's fist was engulfed in blue flames...

"RAAARRWWW!" the dragon roared and then reared up on it's back legs, a murderous look in it's eyes…

"Oi! Scales! Eat THIS!" the black and read haired girl began to pelt the dragon with bursts of red energy, as she soared around it's head in tight circles…

"LOOK OUT!" Blaze shouted as the Dragon suddenly opened it mouth and snapped it at the strange red colored girl attacking it's eyes...  
Moving at the speed of light, Blaze grabbed the girl from certain death and filled the dragon's mouth with more of his blue fire...

"RAHHHHHH!" Dra-Gar choked on the holy flames and fell away spitting dark tar like blood from his now ruined mouth...  
"Tell Trigon his day's are numbered demon!"  
Blaze's eyes then shot pure blue flame into the wounded form of the massive dragon...

Dra-Gar burst into flames, shrieking and cursing as he died...

Blaze let go of the girl, and turned to her, "... Thank you..." Blaze then held his right side, three long savage claw marks ran down his flank, from his chest, to the waist band of his baggy green cargo shorts, "Ohhh..." Blaze fell to the ground, landing on his knees... "Help... Me... Titans..."

He passed out and fell onto his side...

Argent grabbed blaze and slung him over her shoulder, carrying him into the tower before dumping him on the couch; spinning around. She shouted out, "Hey Mates! I found someone! He's injured pretty bad!" she yelled. Waiting for anyone to come, she sighed quietly; and grabbing the first aid kit and some bandages from the kitchen, she began to bandage him up.

Hearing the cries from within the safety of her mind only moments earlier, Mystic rushed downstairs, fluttering her wings slightly, as they hadn't been used in quite a while. Once there, she saw Argent, tending to the wounds of a Wolf-boy. She knew nothing of what had gone on with the Raven Clone and Trigon, so the new comer held no major significance for her…  
"Argent! What happened?" she asked, rushing to give lend a hand, "Big fight with a fire lizard is wot love… this guy comes out of a big blue hole in the sky trading blows and insults with some dragon he called Dra-Gar… never heard of em' before…"

Raven had finished talking to Gar and was going to get ready to go on their 'date.' Voices could be heard and Raven paid no attention until she heard Mystic's voice. Walking, she saw Argent, Mystic and someone she didn't know. "Who is this?" Raven asked looking between the two girls. She was happy, but her face was masked with no emotion. It was best to keep up appearances until Raven and Gar told the other Titans about their relationship.

Moving closer, Raven waited for a reply, her eyes scanning the room quickly, and saw that no one else was around, but she felt something… Powerful in the room… And it was coming for the fur covered stranger…

As he was being patched up, Blaze was in a heavy sleep and dreaming...

_A seven foot tall Anthro-Wolf with long royal blue hair and a large, angled broad sword on his back stood with a small pale skinned half angel with beautiful long sliver hair, and in front of them stood a slim, pretty brown furred cat-girl, they where all smiling, and waving as he walked up to a large blue flame portal..._

_The half Angel spoke with a soft loving voice; "We are very proud of you Will... Please be careful son, don't make your move until your father can get there." William nodded and smiled lovingly, "Yes mam... Kit, you and momma stay safe, keep close to Uncle James ok?"  
"I can take care of myself Blaze!" the cat-girl said in a teasing voice...  
The taller Anthro-wolf, Blaze's father spoke with a warning tone "Blaze, where your going is very dangerous... The fire warriors there where killed off by Legion and Trigon long ago... Once there, you may not be able to remember anything when you arrive..."  
_

_  
An unholy roar split the air as five large demonic dragons burst out of a rift in the sky...  
"BLAZE GO!" Fire Wolf, the demi-god of fire and wrath, the physical manifestation of Adoni's fury, pulled his sword and charged the five demons as Blaze gave his sister and mother the cover fire they needed to escape, however, despite the great Fire warriors best efforts... One Dragon got to the portal right on Blaze's heels..._

Blaze bolted upright, his baby blue eyes lit up with fire in them "DAD!" He was frantic and he almost deep-fried the two girls tending his wounds... "WH-Where am I?"

"Easy now Dingo... Your' tore up good and proper… Raven, Mystic, give a hand?"

The wolf-boy started to move his head like he looking for some one specific; "Ohhh... Raven? Are you Raven? Where's Robin?" Blaze was still somewhat out of it, but he had the wherewithal to remember the one thing his father had told him was the most important: _"Find the Titans, and talk to Raven and Robin... Raven will be able to perform the Warrior's spell to confirm who you are, and Robin will figure out how to keep you hidden until you adjust after your inter-dimensional trip..."_

He sat there, his topless, ripped, fur covered torso still bleeding as he tried to stand, "Warrior's spell... You need..." He shook his head to try to clear it, "Raven... Perform the Warrior's spell... I'm, here to stop... help stop... Trigon... My father will come..." His eyes stopped glowing and reverted to there baby blue coloring as they focused first on the dark empath, then on the pale, dark haired girl holding bandages to his blue, blood stained side, then back, his voice slightly stronger, "When I trap Trigon, My father will come and kill him once and for all..." Blaze took a ragged breath then looked around the room: He saw Raven and Argent again, who he recognized, then he turned and faced a golden brown haired girl with a kind quiet aura, not unlike his mothers... And she was the most beautiful girl he had ever laid eyes on... He blinked slowly, his strength wavered and his eyes fluxed as he slowly started to morph into a human form... Something he had never been able to do before...  
"Ahh my' head..." Blaze sat down and held his head as the transformation was completed... He bore a fair likeness to the lead singer of Green Day now...  
He was also quite shell shocked...

When the boy mentioned his head, Mystic immediately reached out with her left hand, placing it gently on his forehead as a blue-white light erupted from her palm, her healing powers were beginning to kick in, and hopefully, they would spare the boy from his pain. Pulling it away, she watched him closely. "He should be alright now," she said. "But he's going to need a lot of rest, food and quiet. Then we can find out exactly what he's talking about."

When Mystic touched Blaze's head he felt a calming, soothing force flow into his head, easing the pain of the transformation, and calming his mind slightly...  
He also noted how soft and warm it was... And in a slight fluke, he read her mind and the mass of thoughts that where held within...  
He was able to pick out only that she had no clue who he was, how Trigon had come back and that she and Raven where best friends but that she felt "slightly un-trusted"...

Blaze shook his head clear of the information and sat there, his side now only scarred, the skin stained with blue blood... "Thank you.." he muttered as he slowly started to feel the strain fully catch up with him...  
As Raven and Mystic spoke he looked around the room... The other girl, Argent, walked out, "I'll grab th' Tin man… k'?"

Mystic she glanced at Raven, still remembering what he had said. '_A Warrior's spell?'_ She wasn't sure what exactly that was, but she knew that she needed to find out, in order to help the Titans against Trigon.

'_Funny...'_ she thought. _Raven neglected to mention that Trigon was back…_' That is if this strange boy was telling the truth… But her powers and instinct told her that he was…

"Raven, what's going on? Please tell me…" Raven flinched before nodding. " I'll perform the warrior spell when you are stronger." She turned to Mystic. "There is something I need to tell you." Raven trusted Mystic and she needed to tell her teammate the truth about a few things. She had kept quiet for far too long…

Mystic looked at Raven for a moment, and then back at the boy who lay at her feet. But she turned, nodding to her friend as she pulled her away, waiting anxiously to hear what she had to say. She had to know why Raven hadn't said anything about Trigon's return, remembering the destruction that had happened the last time they all fought him. She had heard the stories, recalled memories.  
"Raven," she said softly. "What's going on?"

"Someone named Inferno is after Slade and bought Trigon to Earth by way of a clone of… well… me… I went to Azarath looking for help, then they told me that they thought Trigon was there but it turned out it wasn't him." Raven sighed lightly and looked her friend in the eye; "He's back and with Robin gone with Titans East, I don't know what to do." Raven sighed softly.

Mystic glanced at Raven once more, a kind smile on her lips, her hand gently found the dark sorceress' shoulder and she held it there, knowing that Raven wasn't the kind to accept hugs from anyone. Her eyes sparkled with sincerity as spoke. "Don't worry Raven," she said quietly. "Remember, I'm your friend, and I'll always be by your side... We can beat Trigon, I know it."

Then another voice reached her. That boy she had healed, he was up and had started moving, "That's why I'm here..." Blaze said, his legs slightly weak, but the fire in his now dark blue eyes was back as he spoke the ancient Celtic prophecy; "The Mighty Warrior was born of fire, his father Wrath, mother desire, love and wisdom his sister be, Judgment has come, to set the world free..."  
He stood there, his eyes softly glowing, his scarred torso had a blue tint, and his face was firm and unyielding... "One day soon Raven... Your Father will be no more..."

Blaze stood for a few more seconds before he stumbled and fell to his knees in front of the two girls...  
He looked up into Mystic's eyes and softly asked her; "Are you an angel?" Poor Blaze he was still calling her "Angel Girl" in his mind...  
And his last thought before he passed out was how beautiful she was...

But she didn't have time to answer, as she hurried forward, catching his shoulders just before he hit the ground...

* * *

Read and Review por favor! 


	7. A Connection?

As Blaze drifted off, he felt his shoulders being caught and his body be moved and gently lay on a soft surface as well as hushed voices...

Then it was just dark and quiet for what seem to be a few heart beats...

Two days later, Blaze woke up in a light gray bedroom, tucked into a nice, warm bed... well the room seemed gray, he was having trouble seeing things, as it was all slightly out of focus and had little depth...  
He thought he saw someone sitting next to what might have been a small desk...  
"Hello? Is some one there?" Blaze hoped so, as he was quiet thirsty...

Mystic turned around from the controls desk, giving their guest a small smile. Raven and the others had gone off, she supposed, so as far as she knew, she and this boy were alone in the Tower.  
"Glad to see your alright," she said softly. "You had me worried for a little bit there."  
Turning back, she typed in a few more things before she pressed the monitor button and got up out of the chair, pulling her wings tightly behind her before stretching them out. She sighed with content. "So," she said. "Are you hungry? How about some pizza?"

Even with her face and body looking slightly fuzzy, her voice was instantly recognized... Blaze blinked and shook his head a bit, then spoke up;

"Um, yeah, but I'd really like some water first..." he coughed, "I'm so thirsty right now..." his mellow lumpy tenor cracked and he coughed again as he slid his legs out off the side of the bed... "Um... Can I get some help? I'm having a little trouble seeing clearly..."  
Blaze blushed slightly and thought to himself;_'Great, here I am, son of the god of Wrath, looking like a weak puppy in front of the most beautiful girl in two universes... how lame...'_

Feeling sorry for the poor boy, she went over to his side, draping one of his arms over her shoulders as her hands rested on his bare torso to steady him, one on his back, one on his chest… She noted the firm dense tone he had as well as how heavy his arm seemed for it's size…

She opened the doors with her mind, leading him through the halls until they reached the kitchen. There, she sat him down on one of the stools before grabbing him a glass of cold water, "Here you go," she said, gently taking his fingers in hers.

Blaze was grateful for the girls help, and as had she guided him down the hallway, he felt slightly evil for enjoying the feel of her arms and hands on him, but he'd never really had anything in the way of physical contact with a girl that wasn't his mother or sister...

After his third glass of water, Blaze was feeling much better and was seeing things clearly, but his depth perception was still just slightly off.  
"Thank you... Um, ah, well we haven't really met have we?"  
Blaze held out his hand with a kind, proud smile; "William Talbot, son of Maxwell and Jessica Talbot, better known as Fire Wolf and Angel, They call me Blaze..." He smiled, and looked into her lovely blue eyes...

Hearing his strange introduction, she let out a girlish giggle, something she hadn't done in a long time. Leaning on the counter, she smiled through her blue eyes, watching him carefully…  
_Destiny Halliwell,_ she said in his mind. _Pyromacer, healer, telepath, and telekinetic wizard... They call me _Mystic_, and maybe a few other things I might not know about…_  
Stepping back, she opened the fridge, bending over slightly so she could peer inside without hitting her head. As girl who was somewhat tall at five foot ten, she did that a lot.

William was impressed; "Telepathic? Fire? Cool! I've got that myself, but I can't heal, and I can only read what is going through someone's mind at the time I read it... Oh and it only works on mortals..." Will blushed again as he watched Destiny bend over to get into the fridge...  
The movement gave him a good backside view of her figure, and after a few seconds, he looked away and gritted his teeth_'DAMM YOU! Go blank go blank go blank...'_ his mind obeyed and he replied again; "That's really cool, I guess your part spiritual in breeding then?" Other than his father, Blaze had never really met anyone else with a similar power set as him, even his twin sister had a huge variation in her main powers...

Standing upright, Mystic smirked to herself. She had heard his mental monologue, as he demanded that his mind go blank, and she had also seen, mentally, how impressed he was with her figure. However, instead of being angry, she was a little flattered… Not many people told her she was attractive… "You'd be surprised at what I can do," she said softly, as she forced her blush to fade…

Despite still recovering somewhat from the ordeal of switching universes, Blaze still had his powerful senses, as well as most of his powers fully working, and he picked up on her soft response verbally and he also caught onto her flattered thoughts which had caused his eyes to light up like flashbulbs...  
And he knew right then that she'd picked up on him looking at her butt...  
Blaze closed his eyes and bowed his head, "Um... Thanks for not being angry... But… You really are quite beautiful..." He opened his eyes and looked at his chest... and almost had a heart-attack...

"Wha-where's my fur?!?" He then gave a good hard look at his hands, now that his could see more than fuzzy gray objects, he realized that he was in a human form, topless, and for the first time since he could remember, he could see the Celtic Armband Tattoo and the five symbols that where seemingly branded into the flesh of his upper right arm...  
"I'm... I'm human?" Blaze then bolted up out of the chair and felt around his butt and lower back; "MY TAIL!" He was now standing there, his ripped and slightly scarred torso covered in a thin layer of flash sweat, his hands slowly moving up and down his arms...  
Blaze had a look of pure shock on his face as he slowly sat back down...  
He was so rattled that he began speaking in Ancient Hebrew; "Adoni... Mich' ell' corbre'! Et ba rek' ka-lep bey' oo' daon... Mystic... what happened last night? When I got here..."  
Poor Blaze didn't even know where to begin...  
_'What is going on?'_

Seeing the surprise on his face, she held a small laugh in her body. He seemed disoriented, confused by his appearance and he spoke words that held no meaning to her. His hands flew to his rear end, which astounded her as he moved them around, searching for something that was no longer there.  
"I don't know what happened to you before Argent brought you back to the Tower, but I do know that you were wounded badly. My healing must have fixed those scars before they became permanent." she remarked, peering at his arms and torso.  
Her fingers brushed his skin as she remembered the gashes she had seen. No longer did they mark his trim ripped body, muscular and firm as it was.

Blaze looked at Destiny, and shook his head in confusion, then when she touched his arm where one of Dag-Gar's claws had opened him, he felt a warm tint fill his cheeks... "Um... what I mean is... I was an Anthro wolf when I came here... I never had a human form... till now..."  
Blaze's stomach growling loudly interrupted his next sentience… He blushed so deeply that he thought his powers might have caused his cheeks to burst into flame...

Rolling her eyes, she picked up the phone, ordering a couple of pizzas to be delivered to the Tower. She spoke for a few moments, her soft voice echoing through the hall as she laughed with the pizza guy, a friend of hers from an earlier mission. As a token of gratitude, the Titan's no longer had to pay for their pizza's…  
"Thanks Jim," she smiled. "Twenty minutes? Alright. See yah."  
She put the phone down, giving Blaze a soft smile; "Food will be here soon, don't worry." She looked at him and recalled the events of two nights ago; "I know you where an Anthro when Toni brought you in, but when you transformed, I thought it might be your body trying to heal itself…" Nodding, Blaze took a deep breath and calmed down, then smiled at Mystic; "Nope… Listen, I'm sorry, I knew that being here would be hard, but this universe is a bit out there... No fire warriors, it feels bigger than home... and now I'm seem to have a human form…" Blaze looked at the floor as a saddening realization washed over him... "I can't feel my family anymore either and I feel empty inside... makes me feel like... I'm weak..." Blaze searched his vast mind and let his spirit ebb and flow, feeling for the link he shared with his family...  
It simply wasn't there...  
He sat back down and looked out of the window and spoke softly; "Sorry... I guess I'm acting like a nut case... this is just all really new and kinda scary for me..." He looked over At her sadly, like a lost puppy... And for all practical reasoning, he was...

With sympathy in her eyes, she sat up on the counter, placing one of her slender hands on his. She knew his pain, being in a strange place without family, without hope. It reminded her of how she used to be, when she was experimented on, when she was taken away from her second family… While she had been in Gotham, living and working with Batman, she had been searching for her family, but found nothing. And then _they_ kidnapped her… It had been the worst day of her life… "I do understand," she said quietly. "It may not seem that way, but I do." She began to pull away, cheeks flushing a faint pink as the recollections returned. It was another thing from her past, another memory she had tried to suppress but, unfortunately, failed…

William looked up at Destiny, and as they made eye contact, his vision was flooded with painful memory's and then feelings crawled along his skin and insides...  
Slowly and painfully he blinked away breaking off most of the inadvertent telepathic connection...  
"I'm sorry... I... I've seen a lot of pain... I've felt a lot of pain..." He sighed, remembering the first few years of his life, and the pain and turmoil his family had been in… He looked at the counter where her hand set not far from his own, and he gently picked up her hand, and looked up at her sweet, lovely face, "But I've also seen and felt a lot of love, and I know that to lose that... is a heart breaking experience..." He set her hand down and nodded kindly, "But lets not dwell on that right now, I'm sure you didn't read all of my mind, heh, even I don't know everything that in there... Any questions you need answered?"  
Blaze figured that it was best to do something that didn't make him all nerves and mushy inside and talking about hurt and pain and love, as much as he enjoyed it, and very much so with Destiny, he didn't know where that might end up...

She shrugged. "I'm not the type to ask a lot of questions. Normally, they answer themselves." Blaze nodded his understanding at the wisdom of that, then arched his eyebrows a few seconds before the door buzzer rang announcing the pizzas arrival...

The door bell made her react, getting up to answer it. After a short exchange with the delivery boy, who insisted on hitting on her, she gave him a smile, a tip and closed the door, walking lightly down to the table. She placed three boxes of pizza there, taking the top one off as she passed it to Blaze; "Eat as much as you want. I ordered an extra one for you in case you were super hungry." She took the one on the bottom, opening it to reveal a pizza of her own, just plain cheese.

"Thank you Destiny," he said as he took the pizza box and opened it, to find a double pepperoni; "Oh yes!" Will grabbed a large slice and chomped it down in two bites and was already holding a new slice when we looked over and nodded playfully; "You sure must have read my mind on _this_..." he stood and walked back the fridge, leaned in and pulled out the pitcher of cold water... Being almost six and a half feet tall, he had to lean quiet a bit to reach it.

Rolling her eyes, she turned the TV on with a small blink, and changed it to the news. Nothing interesting had happened, a quiet day was had by all. So she turned it to the Movie Network, giving Blaze a small smile, "Want to watch anything?" she asked, eating her pizza slowly,  
within the next few moments, she had produced a glass of lemonade beside her, and she sipped it while she ate. Being a telepath really had it's perks...

At her question however he shrugged; "I really don't watch much TV... Me and my sister always found stuff to do like practice with our powers or talk or just run around... and I really don't know what might be good anyways..." Blaze had felt her telepathic energy buzz a bit here and there as he pulled the water out, and he was not surprised when he saw that Mystic had gotten herself some lemonade and had the TV on sans a remote…  
He set the water pitcher down after refilling his class and taking a drink, he grabbed the pizza box and shoved his fourth slice into his mouth and begin to chew...  
_'Sooo is this what do you do here all day? If nothings happening?'_ Blaze thought as loud as he could, knowing that she most likely would hear his thoughts, and his mouth was too full to talk...  
_'Depends on the day. Most of the time, I end up walking around the city, and people swarm me because one of us saved them and they want to repay us. My normal hang out was destroyed, so the Tower is basically where I am unless I'm needed.'_  
She chewed her pizza slowly, switching off the TV with another blink. Outside, the weather had turned gray, like a storm was coming in. The perfect place for her to think had reappeared.

"Ahhh... so it's like that here too huh?" Blaze had taken a slight break from inhaling his pizza and was looking out the window at the slowly darkening sky... "Looks like a light rain... mind if I go out and walk the island? I need to clear my head and try to remember everything my dad told me before I got here..." Blaze stood there, his eyes unmoving as he looked outside, a slightly sad look on his face... He was starting to miss the link he held with his family and the rain would help him forget it and focus on his mission...

She shook her head, sipping her lemonade once more; "No problem," she smiled. "I'll see you later. Raven will want to talk to you some more I'm sure." He nodded; "Okay, thanks again Destiny for the pizza, it's good to know you... Hey!" William had gotten to the door but then spun around and look at Destiny, a question mark on his face; "You never did answer my question... Are you an angel?"

Hearing the same question ring in her ears, Mystic turned away, a little confused, and a little sad. To think that someone else thought so highly of her made her feel different. In a way, she didn't know if she liked...

"I'm no angel," she said quietly. "I'm no where near an angel."


	8. What? Is this? Love?

_'... Uh-oh... I hit a nerve there... but what did I hit?'_  
He stood there, his brow furrowed, not at her answer but in the way she answered, and it didn't take a mind reader to know that there was something deep there...

Blaze hated to be near anyone who had a hurt buried deep inside, and he had, with lots of coaching from Beast Boy and Raven (back in his home universe) had become a great listener and had a knack for helping folks...

He turned fully and faced her, even although she had her back turned to him, he spoke softly, kindly; "Okay... But why do you say it like that? Like there's something bad or wrong about you?" Blaze remembered the pictures and feeling he had felt earlier and he started to get pieces together...

She glanced his way, her mood darkened slightly as she remembered her past, all of the wrong she had done. Of how she tried to redeem herself, but finding that it wasn't enough. And of her dream; that same vision haunted her night after night, tormenting her into denial... She couldn't be that way, could she?  
"Somethings are better left unanswered," she said quietly. "And this is one of them."

Blaze looked long and hard at Mystic, his dark blue eyes searching her ocean blue eyes, tinted with green, and he suddenly knew that she felt a great guilt and had a past the was less than stellar...  
"Maybe... but there is nothing in the past that is worth ruining yourself over..." William's voice was soft, and calm, his eyes searching and knowing all at the same time...  
He walked over to Destiny and stood there, shirtless, bare foot and still slightly fuzzy brained, but willing to do any and everything to help his new friend get over the deep hurt the she had been hiding...  
And he had some horrid first hand knowledge about deep hurts...

Feeling that knowledge was being shared between them, she stepped back, eyes wide. She didn't want anyone else to suffer the pains of her past, she alone was more than enough. If Blaze felt too much of her hurt, she would never forgive herself, "I don't want to hurt you," she whispered, looking away.

Blaze had always hated lying, and was horrible at it, so it was something he never bothered with... He only knew how to be genuinely heart felt all the time...

And this was a prime time to be heartfelt...  
He closed the gap between them and he gently grabbed her hand and held it; "You can't hurt me Destiny... Please, I want to help you... I only trust my friends, and right now, every fiber of my being is screaming to trust you... now please trust me, be my friend... I won't let you down..."  
Somewhere in his vast layered mind, Blaze had the urge to kiss Mystic, but elsewhere, he somehow also knew that doing so was not a good idea... yet... and maybe not ever...  
But for now, he was content to simply be her friend, and to try and help her confront her demons... He was sure it was just one of the many reasons he was here...

She had tried to move back, but she felt herself become caught in his grasp. His fingers held tightly to her hand as his body pressed against hers, giving her a strange shiver she had never felt before. There was something about Blaze, something that didn't make a lot of sense to her, but at the same time, she felt as though she knew everything about him.  
Her eyes widened as she saw his thoughts about the kiss, though she said nothing, and blocked the image from his mind, she didn't want him to read the emotions she was feeling. Fear, confusion, and something else… Something that she didn't understand...

Blaze felt the gentle mental prodding from Mystic, but really, despite her powers, his mind was so vast that is was like trying to hold the sea back with a piece of cardboard... Still he let the thought pass as he looked at the hurt frightened girl in front of him...  
His heart broke for her, as he felt the shame and fear that she had tried to hide and bury deep inside of herself...  
"Mystic... some roads are meant to be walked alone... but some burdens must be shared..." he smiled gently at her, "That's why I was born; to help people looking for redemption, with there burdens..." Blaze slowly, gently, pulled her into a side hug and spoke softly; "Destiny... Please, let me help... I want to help you..."  
He stood there, his strong arm wrapped around her shoulders in a protective, brotherly gesture, his heart heavy and full of compassion and... Maybe even love...  
And for a moment, she allowed herself to be weak, covered in an arm that showed her compassion and understanding, though it also portrayed something else. She could feel those emotions running through his body, and her eyes opened wide, her hands pressed firmly against his chest as she pushed herself back, "And some things cannot be shared," she said, backing up. "You can't help me Blaze... As nice and sweet as you are, I'm beyond saving." She turned on her heel, heading for the door to get to her room as she walked, faster than normal.

Despite a single encounter in his past, Blaze had never truly been that physically close to a non family member before and he was somewhat scared, but when Mystic pushed away and walked off, he was only slightly relived... But what she said as she walked off however caused him to snort; "I'm the only one past saving... you still have a chance... I however..."  
Blaze blinked slowly as he ran what she had said over in his mind...

A small tear streaming down her face, Mystic hurried through the doors. She was unstable, the medical team had said. Her powers could easily be manipulated to evil, causing the world great harm. So, when she ran away, she knew that she had left that part of her life behind. That wasn't where she belonged… but did she belong here? As a Titan? Did she really belong _anywhere_? " I can't… I've got to run…" she whispered hoarsly to herself, but in a flash of light, Blaze stood in front of her, his hands up in a gentle manner, his eyes searching her face...  
"That won't solve anything... In fact it will only make things worse..." Blaze had now decided that what ever he felt for her would, at this point, only hurt her and or make things worse, so it was best for him to forget that, and focus on helping her fight her inner demons... Something he was an expert in...

She stopped, stumbling backward a little as he appeared, trying to help her. But he couldn't. She was beyond help by now, and she knew it. Only problem was, the way he was acting, she was afraid she would have to hurt him. "Step aside," she growled lowly. "I have no problems taking you on if it means I have too."

Somewhere in the back of his vast mind, Will knew what he was about to say was going to be a major gamble...  
He didn't care...

"I can take anything you throw at me and then some... but why waste the time and energy?"  
Blaze was still not at his best but he was the son of THE fire warrior... how hard could she hit anyways?

"You'd be surprised at what I can do," she whispered.  
Then, without warning, she brought her hand across her body, as if she was going to strike Blaze right then and there. But instead, a force of telekinetic energy wiped him away from her, farther than she had intended, "I'm sorry," she whispered…

"Ow... that's okay..." Blaze shook his rattled head and stood up, his eyes uncrossing as he popped his neck and loosened up his arms...  
He seemed to take a single step, but it took him right back to his spot a few feet in front of her...  
"Now are you done?"  
His eyes flashed a bright blue and he shook his head; "Mystic... That's not the best idea..."  
well, she had now been warned...

"You can't stop me Blaze," she said, her own eyes flashing red. "So don't bother trying."

Blaze stood there, his eyes glowing a soft blue, his body tense, his mind racing...  
"I'm not trying to stop you... I'm trying to help you... Why are you so afraid Mystic? I told you, you can't hurt me, and you're only hurting yourself and the others when you don't face your demons!" Blaze then hit on something as he looked into her glowing eyes...  
"I can't change the past, no one can... but if you'll trust me, I can help you change your future... You can be saved... but you have to stop fighting it..."  
Blaze would never hurt her, nor would he back down...  
So if she didn't give in...  
Then he might have to...  
Blaze didn't want to think about that...

She shook her head. "Things aren't what they seem."  
Tossing a pellet at his feet, it exploded, filling the hall with a nasty smelling smoke, and as it cleared, she vanished…

The smoke wasn't too bad but it was just enough for Blaze to loose track of Mystic and let her get by him...  
Blaze sighed; "No... They never are..."  
In a flash of fire and light, Blaze was outside on the roof of the tower, looking over the city...

He thought long and hard about what had just happened...  
And one thought always came back to him...  
He had failed...

She stopped flying at the tree line just past the beach, Destiny landed quietly, breathing deeply. She felt horrible for having done that to Blaze, but there was no turning back now. Her eyes returned to their normal blue shade as she looked back at the Tower, head hanging. She couldn't return after that… how could she call herself a Titan now?

Blaze sat on the edge of the tower as the rain finally started to fall gently from the gray clouds in the sky...  
He felt like he had failed some one who needed him to come through in the worst way...  
But he also felt a tug at his heart...  
Blaze stood and looked over the city...

Slowly backing up, Blaze sprinted to the edge of the tower roof, and jumped...  
As he slowly started to fall, a pair of flaming blue spirit wings formed on his back, they unfolded and spread out, lifting him back into the air and across the bay...

After making landfall, William looked around for Destiny and soon found her walking along the trees on the beach…

Gliding low to the ground, he called out to her; "Destiny! Please! Wait! Please talk to me!"

Looking up and behind her she gasped then turned back and ran away into the trees until she came out the other side into a park, where she unfolded her own wings and took to the air, flying low to the ground. And she flew on, without direction, hearing the faint sound of his voice calling to her in the distance... Shortly, the rain began to fall, drowning out all sounds except the thumping of her heart... Deep down, something wasn't right, part of it was her, but the other part, she wasn't sure…

Climbing over the tree tops, His head snapped down, looking past the trees and in the direction that Destiny had flown off in, his eyes blazing blue fireballs...  
He muttered under his breath; "Dammit..."

Flying into the distance, it didn't take too long for Destiny to block the voices from her mind, but she couldn't block out this strange feeling she had that something bad was about to happen…

Blaze couldn't… but… but as he flew on he saw Mystic flying low to the ground, just ahead of the light wall of rain he was quickly out pacing...

He then heard a sharp "Click!"

"MYSTIC!" Blaze let go of his restraint and sprinted at full speed into a flying tackle, morphing back into his Anthro-Wolf form, his flaming blue spirit wings reaching out and pushing her to the ground...

As four loud pops sounded, and three explosions of blue blood and gray fur erupted from Blaze's chest...  
He fell to the ground in a heap, his spirit wings dissolving on impact...

All at once, she hit the ground, groaning from the impact, and her heart stopped beating at the shots...

She quickly turned, holding Blaze's head on her lap as she froze. She had to find where those shots had come from, but if she didn't heal him, he would die! She couldn't take his death on her conscience! Holding her hands over him, Mystic pulled the bullets from his chest, tears streaming down her face as she pulled them. It must hurt him so much! Then, dropping them on the ground, she began the slow healing process, glancing all around to see where the shooter could have been.  
"Damn it Blaze," she mumbled through her tears. "Why did you have to do that? I can heal myself!"

A shot of blue flame slammed the gunman to the ground, knocking him out cold… "I know... But I can't be killed by bullets..." Blaze half grinned up at Mystic as his strong fury chest healed over and the pain ebbed away...  
He slowly sat up and shook his head; "Ow... I guess I'll _never_ get use to getting shot... even if it can't kill me, it sure hurts like hell..." Blaze's fur was still missing in the places he'd been shot, but the slate colored skin was now firm and whole again and the fur would grow back.

The rain was now falling on the young heroes, and it started to run down his furry face, so he formed his spirit wings and stretched them over her…  
As the rain fell on the fearless hero, he looked at Mystic he eyes clear and friendly; "Your a Titan right? Then you understand that "Titan's together" is real to me... I count you as my friend Destiny, so you mean something to me, just like if you where my sister, just like my friends back home... Do you understand?"  
Will hoped she did, as he had pushed his other feelings for her down, back into the deepest corners of his mind and heart...  
He would likely keep them there forever, where no one but him could ever know about them...

She shook her head, standing up, she couldn't believe that he was alright, her mouth hung open in shock. He was alright, that was all she cared. But still, she thought he could have died! The jerk! Why didn't he tell her? Angry and frustrated, she turned on her heel, walking away again. She couldn't handle this right now. "I don't but I'm sure it is…"

Blaze stood up as she turned away again, a sad questioning look on his face...  
"Is that your answer to everything? Just walk away? Fix everyone else and leave yourself broken? _What_ is so hard about letting someone help you?" He sounded a bit harder than he wanted to, but his emotions where starting to flux and he felt his senses spike suddenly...

She was walking away when she felt something, a pain that stabbed through her entire body. She fell to her knees, squirming in pain as she grit her teeth to prevent herself from crying out. This was unlike anything she had ever felt before, and it hurt, badly…

Three large horrid looking dog like beings with bone like spikes covering there body's suddenly formed not far from the young heroes, the largest of the three had glowing orange eyes that pierced into ones soul and pulled from it your deepest darkest fears...

_"Hello son of wrath... ahh... And the Treasure! How nice! Our job is now ten times easier..."_

"Lycree..." Blaze growled as he stepped in front of Mystic and struck a battle stance his eyes glowing darkly...

"Foolish boy, you can't beat all three of us and protect the Treasure! And do you want the lovely lady to see your shame filled defeat? No I think not..."

"Shut up and die..." Blaze whispered as he jumped into the middle of them, fists covered in intense holy blue flame...

The devil dog on Lycree's left went down first, his side gashed open with a flaming blue blade and his body tossed with a savage kick...

As the other ducked and dodged Blaze's fury, Lycree started to stalk slowly forward, Mystic in his evil gaze...

Only to be confronted by three tall mean looking blue flaming swordsmen...

"Do you think this will stop me boy?"  
Lycree said as he stood looking at the three constructs...

"No... But I will..."

Blaze spoke into the devil dog's ear a heartbeat before he took a large bite out of his neck...

"Gggggaaaaaaa..." Lycree jumped back and then flopped onto his side, tar and smoke pouring out of the missing side of his neck...

Standing there looking at the dying demon-dog, the young Angelic anthro-wolf spat the foul tasting flesh from his mouth and then stood...

"Destiny... are you... oohhhh..." Will's eyes suddenly flashed and he stopped his advance on her, holding his head, and his shorts...  
_'Uhh oh... '_

Thoughts, imagined pictures, and urges flashed across his mind and his body started to react...

"No... NO! Not NOW! Please! Ahh..." Will stood there shuddering slightly as he started to grow more feral in voice and manner...

He stumbled up to Mystic's kneeling form and he fell on his knees, his eyes growing wild...

He wanted her soo badly...

"NO! I can't! I mustn't!"  
_'But I need to... I have to!_

A final thought flew from his mind at Destiny as he slowly backed away; _'I'm sorry… but… I need to protect you from myself now… I'll explain when I come back… I'm sorry…'_

In a frantic dash Blaze jumped up and ran away, headed to the forest at an incredible speed...

* * *

YAY FOR DRAMA! 

Peeps! R&R por favor!


	9. Son, Guardian and Slayer

_Titans Tower West..._

Five days came and went and Mystic was still a bit rattled by her encounter with Blaze…

But she had finally gotten to the point where she could talk to Raven and level with her… And Raven, being her "jovial" self took it all in stride; "So let me get this straight, you know that he has feelings for you, but you also know that he's not going to push it, and you also have no clue how you feel about it." Destiny nodded; "Yup, that's about it Raven, I mean… you know how it is to feel… lonely… and to never have anyone tell you that your attractive or…" she sighed and Raven nodded slightly, "But to have someone just suddenly… challenge everything and…" Mystic sighed again and shook her head; "I've never really felt love like that before…" Raven sat there looking at the sad blue-eyed girl, then spoke softly in her slightly raspy, yet almost comforting monotone; "I know… There is a big difference between the love of friends and the love of… well, a partner or a lover, or even a spouse… There are many kinds of love just like there are many shades of blue or gray or green… I've found in fact, there are as many levels of emotion as there are shades of colors…" Raven was not know as an arty person, but she was well read and very intelligent, and as such, was well versed in many subjects, like art, and she secretly had a deep interest in it…

Raven looked at the far wall and continued; "I know it's hard to live your life thinking you're not… desirable… But trust me Destiny, if I Raven, the daughter of Trigon, can beat fate and find love, I know you have a hell of a shot at it… I mean, I'm not even suppose to even be alive, much less in love…" Raven blushed slightly, her pale grayish cheeks growing rosy as her violet eyes looked away… she was still adjusting to having a romantic relationship with Beast Boy…

Mystic smiled softly at her friend and then reached out, holding her arms out waiting for a hug, and Raven, slowly responded in kind; "Thank you Rachel… You'll never know how much of a help you are… to all of us." The pale spell caster rolled her dark eyes, "I think I can take a wild guess…" the girls slowly broke the hug and Raven stood. "I don't know if I'll ever really get used to that…" Mystic smiled and laughed; "Just give it time…" the girls parted, with slight, happy, smiles on their lips…

"Man, I know your peeved about all this, but I didn't get to meet him either, and if what Mystic said is true, then he's probably got some minor issues like BB, nothing too bad, just… hormones…" Cyborg leaned on his baby, the T-car, in the garage with Robin, who was sitting on his R-cycle, and fuming mad; "Peeved? Peeved? I'm_way_ the hell past _peeved_ Victor… I'M ROYALY PISSED _OFF_!" The boy wonder was the leader and the oldest of the Titans, he had a half a year on Cyborg, and two years on Raven and Mystic plus almost three and a half on Beast Boy but that didn't mean that he was above pitching a fit…

Cyborg sighed and held out his hands; "Man, will you calm down? He saved Argent AND Mystic." Robin glared at the robo-teen with his soulless masked eyes; "Yeah, _after_ he brought powerful evil beings of unknown origin into close contact with them… And hormones? Please Vic…" The cybernetic teen shook his head; "Man, Destiny said she spoke to him and fed him and he freaked out when his found he was missing his fur and tail… sounds like something an anthro would do if he wasn't use to having or being in a human like form. And Anthro's tend to have amped up physical body's right? That means he'll have needs multiplied over what a normal person or even some metahuman's need…"

Truthfully, Cyborg was a bit wary of the new comer, but when he looked at Blaze, there was something about him that Cyborg liked. He couldn't put his finger on it, but his gut was telling him to trust William, and Victor Stone's gut had a track record of ten and oh… So he was ready to let Blaze out of the guest room Robin had locked him in when the had come back early that morning… Whereas Robin, being not so fresh form Steel City, was not…

"Gather the team." Cyborg nodded at Robin as he looked at his built in communicator and called the other Titans in the tower, "Where are we meeting?" Robin paused at the door; "The interrogation room, now…" Cyborg relayed the information to his teammates…

"… Dude, It's totally _not_ funny!" Beast Boy stood toe-to-toe with Robin, his bright emerald eyes flashing with frustration; "Remember… The Beast?" the green skinned changeling stood two inches shorter than the five foot, four inch Raven, and that equaled to an nine-inch deficit in height compared to Robin…

"No, it's not… But last time I checked, the Beast didn't breathe fire, and tangle with demonic beings on a regular basis…" the Boy Wonder crossed his arms and looked down sternly at the elfish boy. "Friends please! We must not argue like this over the new comer… can we not simply make with the garfoth… I mean, question him? Like an, I believe the word is "interview"?" Starfire stood next to Raven and Mystic by the one-way glass in the observation room, looking into the interrogation room…

Inside, Blaze sat in an uncomfortable metal chair, leaning on the table in the middle of the room… He seemed equal parts bored and worried…

"BB's got a point Robin, if he had some kind of rut-like period right after he got here, then him taking off like he did only means that he may have wanted to avoid doing something he'd later regret…" "He right…" Blaze's muffled voice sounded from the glass and all the Titans turned to look at him through the glass… "Wot did he say?" Argent asked as she blinked, her mouth open. "See?!? I TOLD you he can hear us." Beast Boy said, a smirk of triumph on his face as he started to dance in place… Mystic chuckled lightly and Raven smirked, then sighed; "Please stop Beast Boy… We get the point…" Robin arched his masked eyebrow then turned and walked to the door; "Let's get in there and start talking…"

"So let me get this straight," Robin said as he stood across the Titan surrounded table from the still sitting, still topless Blaze, "You're father is a powerful Demigod, and the avatar of the deity of wrath, who is the servant of Adoni, the all powerful God, creator of everything?" Blaze nodded in the affirmative; "You got it, but due to my breeding I'm not a deity or demi, I'm just an angelic half breed, but I carry the same overall power that my dad wields over fire, plus I can manipulate light and heat as well…" "Dude… that's heavy stuff…" Beast Boy crouched on the edge of the table, his eyes wide and jaw slack. "But it's true… very very true…" Raven spoke softly her eyes glowing a white color and a small clear gem in her hand, "I'm ready to perform the warrior's spell now Blaze… are you ready?" the celestially spawned boy nodded and stood, his eyes also glowing softly…

Raven held her right hand out at Blaze, and an ethereal wind slowly kicked up, blowing her violet hair back as well as tossing his dark mop of hair around…

Raven spoke softly, yet her dry, raspy monotone carried throughout the room plainly: "Met oreon, Et' achine' allos! Met oreon, Et' achine' allos! Met oreon, Et' achine' allos!"

Blaze had mimicked Raven's stance and faced her and as she chanted he also chanted a counterpart mantra, perfectly offset in timing: "Ka' lep Et' Fwhay' Ka' lep Et' oo reem'… Ka' lep Et' Fwhay' Ka' lep Et' oo reem'… Ka' lep Et' Fwhay' Ka' lep Et' oo reem'…"

Suddenly the gem in Raven's hand started to glow a bright blue color and float in the air…

Raven and Blaze stopped there chanting and then stood there as the small Gem floated to the center of the room and suddenly spoke with a thousand voices; "The Mighty Warrior was born of fire, his father Wrath, mother Desire, Love and Wisdom his sister be, Justice has come, to set the world free..."

Suddenly, a beam of pure white light shot from the blue flaming gem into Blaze's chest, and his armband tattoo, his birthmark, glowed brightly as well as the stone seemed to empty itself into him with a final word; "Behold a Mighty Warrior… the Son of Rage and Love… Guardian of the Treasure… And the slayer of Trigon…"


	10. Treasured

Just in case anyone didn't know, I own William "Blaze" Talbot,  
and alexgoose Owns Destiny "Mystic" Halliwell...

We do NOT own the wonderful Teen Titans... They belong to DC, WB, And CN...  
ESB

* * *

"Raven… Just what the hell is going on here?" Robin, Cyborg and Mystic had grabbed Raven and bodily dragged her out of the interrogation room and into the hallway leading to the gym and storage rooms on the fourth floor of Titans tower. She stood there wide eyed, short of breath and slightly paler that usual… 

"Raven?" Robin repeated, as he leaned in closer that most people would ever dare, his face also full of shock, "I-I-I wish I could tell you for sure but… I don't really know… It least, I'm not certain anyway…" The purple haired half-demon spoke like an addled schoolgirl, her slightly raspy voice warbled weakly before she took in a few more greedy breaths of air. Mystic shook her head, "What is all this stuff about the "Guardian of the Treasure and the slayer of Trigon" and all? I thought you banished your father from here like two years ago?" Then Cyborg spoke up; "You forget that He's back… Certainly, and thankfully, not at full strength, but as sure as we're standing here, Trigon's back…"

Raven nodded as Robin started to piece what little they knew together; "Okay, what do we know? Well one; some new guy called Inferno wants to get back at Slade for some unknown reason. Two; Slade's been MIA for over six months now, yet Inferno still keeps up his seemingly pointless chase. Three; Inferno somehow, and dammed if anyone really knows how, clones Raven and brings Trigon back, severely weakened, but back all the same…" Raven and Cyborg nodded as Mystic took over the monologue; "Right, then one week later, this guy Blaze shows up through some kind of portal in the sky, fighting a dragon, then after he get's some new kind of morphing power passes out here in the tower…"

Raven kept the ball rolling; "And then after that, he comes around, and… argues with Mystic, then kills a devil dog who seems to think that…" Raven paused and looked at Mystic then shook her head "Mystic, did you tell me that the devil dog Lycree called you the Treasure?" Mystic furrowed her brow and thought a moment, then nodded; "Yeah… now that I think about it, he did. I thought it was weird that they seemed to want me, but I thought that might me a mistake on my part… Why do you ask Raven?" Raven stood there thinking, then grabbed Mystic and pulled her down the hall to the elevator waving for Robin to follow; "Robin follow me! Cyborg! Get Starfire, Beast Boy and Argent to help you keep the new guy busy in the common room, we'll be there in ten minutes!" Cyborg stood there and blinked before moving; "Uhh…. Okay Raven…"

"Glorious! I shall make the pudding of friendship at once!" Starfire gave Blaze one of her famous bone crushing hugs that, much to the shock of the Titans present in the common room, barely seemed to faze him; "She's got her self a hellava' grip there huh?" Beast Boy fell over and Argent simply blinked in shock, "Man, you're the only other guy besides me who's taken one of her hugs and not passed out…" Cyborg reached over and shook Blaze's hand in amazement, as the Angelic half-breed shrugged; "Yeah, well it's about the same back home, Starfire and Robin are really fond of me due to my… what did fearless leader call it?" Blaze screwed his face up and thought for a few seconds, then answered; "Oh yeah, my "combat inspired madness"… Dad says it just means I know when to take risks and when to play it cool." Argent gave Blaze a puzzled look; "Back ome'? You mean ere's a Robin and Star back where yoo're from?" Blaze nodded; "Yeah, see I'm from the third level of reality, whereas this is the fifth level and…" he stopped when he got blank stares from everyone…

"Dude… We have nooo clue what you're talking about… English please!" Cyborg rolled his eye; "That was English B… I think I know what he's talking about… I think." "We have more important issues at hand then the schematics of where Blaze is from…" Robin, Raven and Mystic stood at the wide double doors to the room, a pair of books in Raven's hands, A Titans communicator in Robin's hand and a shocked, puzzled look on Mystic's face… Raven stepped forward first and spoke; "We know exactly why you're here Blaze…"  
Raven walked over to the kitchen table, and laid the larger of the two books down and opened it to a page with a long narrow banner like picture of a set of flaming weapons at the top, the title of the page read: "the Ancient Celtic Fire Warriors"

"First off, "Robin said as everyone gathered around him, Raven and Mystic, "According to this, you're the son of the chosen one, the cursed fire warrior who becomes the avatar of Savfame, servant of Adoni…" Which you already told us." Mystic said as Raven pointed out the passage in the middle of the page, which, being in Ancient Celt, could only be read by herself and Blaze… "But it also says that you are the warrior of justice and light…" Raven had again, taken up the lecture and now turned the page and pointed out a picture of a tall young man in white, blue and gray body armor with Celtic markings and a wolf-head helmet, a long scarf like tassel that hung down his back behind both shoulders… Blaze looked long and hard at the picture then gave Raven a puzzled look; "Are you sure? Cause I've never looked like that before… I mean, I don't have any armor… at all…" Robin spoke up; "That's because its you in your Guardian form… remember the whole, "Guardian of the Treasure" deal? When you find the Treasure, then you can take that form." "At least that's what it says here…" Raven pointed at a passage that was in bold text…

Blaze nodded; "Okay, I'll buy that… but what's this?" he pointed to the second half of the passage… Mystic and Raven shared a look, then Mystic spoke softly; "According to an ancient legend, the Treasure is a person with supernatural powers, who can be manipulated to turn either good or evil. Should they be kept good, the Earth would thrive with them as a protector. But should they fail, the world would fall into darkness, and only by being shown the light could they be saved. The only problem is, if they truly are evil, then nothing can be done. Earth will cease to exist as we know it…" Blaze blinked as his mind raced at speeds that would overload and kill any normal person… "Any leads on who that is?"

Mystic shrugged and Raven gave her then Blaze a look; "We think it might be you, but it's slim seeing that the messenger gem said that you where the Guardian of the Treasure, and _not_ the Treasure yourself." Blaze thought for a moment then snapped his fingers and pointed at the book; "What if there's slight misunderstanding in the legend? I mean, something that is scientifically based could very well be mistaken for magic… like say Starfire, her powers are due to her being an extra terra firma-- I mean extraterrestrial right?" everyone nodded, "Well then for some one who has little or no knowledge of these tings, they might think that Star is some kind of goddess…" Robin blushed slightly and Cyborg and Beast Boy snickered; _"Well, some know better and still think that…"_ Robin cleared his throat a shot a look at the two grinning boys as Blaze started to pace; "So then if we work under that logic, then _any_ of the Titans might be the Treasure…" "But friends, what if this person, the Treasure, is not one of us?" Blaze stopped and smacked his forehead; "Oh man… Starfire's right! We're assuming that the Treasure is a _Titan_… what if it's like average Joe or Jane citizen?" Raven shook her head; "Not likely, see the legend puts everything in the context of the Treasure not knowing who they are until a personally life altering even takes place, something along the lines of a shift in world view or their level of self-worth..." Mystic shifted slightly, a uncomfortable twitch in her foot as she snuck looks at each of the other teens… they where all gazing at random places and thinking…

'_Why does it feel like I should be the Treasure? I'm nothing but a street kid turned into a science project reject…_ She looked around quickly and her eyes came to rest on Robin… she smiled inwardly; _'Turned hero... but why… I'm nothing.'_ she sighed lightly and looked out the window, a calm, thoughtful silence had fallen over the room…

Blaze had heard Mystic's inner musings and he recalled the pain and images he had seen and felt when they had first met… it bothered him that she seemed to think so little of herself…

"… _something along the lines of a shift in world view or their level of self-worth..."_

Raven's words rang in his ears as he caught himself staring at Mystic's masked face, which at the moment, was perfectly framed by her long golden brown curls, which fell just below her shoulders…

"What are you looking at Blaze?" Mystic's soft light voice snapped Blaze all the way back to reality as he blinked a few times and glanced over the girl's shoulder at the far wall where sound system sat; "Uhhh… Nothing… Just, you know... Thinking... Really, hard… And, such an' all…" Blaze's supernaturally sharp hearing caught Beast Boy's ever so slight giggle and snort, but he let it slide…

William took stock of each of the Titans, giving them a quick analytical gaze that was as natural to him as breathing…

Robin was in his super-suit minus his cape, Beast Boy was in his morphing suit, but had taken his gloves off, and Starfire was in her lilac top, mini-skirt and knee high boots. Looking across the table he saw that Argent was in her black and red leather corset and skirt with her calf hugging lace ups, Raven was in her black leotard and felt boots, and had her cape, hood down, draped over her shoulders…

And Mystic… She was in a dark red and black colored suit that consisted of snug fitting leggings with a vest like top, and a slender burgundy cape hanging from two round black buckles on top of her shoulders, completing the look with a white lens domino mask like Robin's…

And Blaze thought she was by far, the best-dressed (and looking) one of the bunch…

He stood and started for the kitchen, "Well I guess we'll find out in good time… After all; we can't force someone to be the Treasure… They'll have to discover it on there own…" Everyone nodded, but Will saw a slight shadow pass over Mystic's face for a heartbeat… _'I'll need to keep an eye on her…' 'So that what? You can make a pass at her?'_

Blaze turned his head and closed his eyes; the only disadvantage of being able to tap into the knowledge and memories of his ancestors was that sometimes… They talked to you… Only it was with his own voice so internally, it sounded like he had split personalities, when in fact he didn't… _'You'd like that huh? No, my feelings for her would only muddy the waters more, and no one needs that… Maybe after I defeat Trigon… but not before…'_ That should shut em' up…

* * *

R&R Mah Peeps! K Thx bey! 


	11. Training? What training?

_Titans Island_

It had been over a month and a half since Blaze had come to Jump, and in that time, he had proven himself worthy of the name Titan, receiving his own com-unit, and a custom made super-suit as well as his own room in the tower. And time and again he became the "go to guy" for single handedly dealing with problems when there where too many action zones for just the other six Titans.

Still, Robin wanted to see his team, his friends, reach even higher levels of readiness, so on this day, he had called a full battle training day for the young heroes…

"Here's how we'll do it, we go one on one, then two on two and then three on three…" Robin looked at the others, and Beast Boy raised his hand; "But… There are seven of us… How do we decide who sits out?" Robin sighed; he hadn't forgotten that Argent had gone back to Australia, and Speedy had yet to call him back about coming over from Steel City for some fun and training…

"That's easy; just add one more…" Everyone turned to face the new, yet familiar voice and no sooner had that happened then Beast Boy's jaw hit the ground, Starfire knocked Cyborg and Robin over flying to the newcomer and Raven blinked a few times as Mystic and Blaze stood there shocked speechless… "TERRA!" Beast Boy and Starfire yelled simultaneously as the slender geomancer smiled and held out her arms to hug them both, "BB! Star!" The bronze skinned alien pulled the slim blond haired girl into a massive hug; "H-h-hiya' S-s-tarf-f-fire… Korry! Air!"

The Tamaranian princess released the poor girl and smiled a sunbeam at her as the green changeling pulled her into a slightly awkward side hug, "Hiya Gar, thanks for not busting my lungs…" He laughed; "You're back! I knew you'd come back! How was high school?" Terra rolled her light blue eyes; "Boring as all hell… But I guess it drove me sane… I remember who I am now… and… everything else…" she sighed lightly and bowed her head; "I just wanted to apologize to you guys… I know you've already forgiven me, but… well, I want to do this the right way…" She raised her head and then pulled out her old Titans communicator and held it up to Robin; "I'm sorry I betrayed the Titans… I was stupid and scared and let my selfishness get in the way… And I put the team in danger…" She bowed her head slowly, "Please forgive me…"

Robin looked back to his teammates and, receiving a nod from the original four, he turned back to Terra and smiled; "It's like you said: We've already forgiven you… Terra welcome back to the Titans." the willowy framed girl started and looked up at the masked and armored boy; "W-what?" Raven stepped up and held out her hand; "You heard him… Welcome back." A slight smile passed over Raven's lips as Terra shook her hand and smiled, "Thank you Raven." Blaze cleared his throat and smiled coyly, his baby blue eyes flashing slightly; "Um, hate to break up the mush-fest here… But ah…I believe that introductions are in order?" Robin chuckled lightly; "Yeah thanks for the reminder… Terra, meet the newest members of Titans west, first, my friend, and former teammate from back in Gotham, Mystic." Mystic held out her hand and smiled slightly, her domino mask flexing with her face; "Hello Terra, it's nice to finally meet you." Terra nodded, "Same… Funny thing though, Birdie never mentioned you when I was on the team…" Robin winced slightly then gestured to Blaze; "And here's the newest member, an amazing fire bender, the most selfless person you'll ever meet, and a guy who seems to have more power in one finger than the rest of us combined, meet Blaze." The fury canine-ish boy smiled; "Wow, it's nice to meet you." Terra arched her eyebrow as they shook hands; "Umm k'… A werewolf… that's… Wow, that's all kinds of cool!" "Well we like to think so." Cyborg said as he walked over and hugged Terra lightly. She smiled up at him, "Hey Cy, how are you doin'?" The cybernetic teen smiled lightly; "I'm still doin' th' do… It's good to see you…" Mystic, Raven and Blaze, being the only mind readers of the group, noticed the slight emotion in Cyborg's voice was deeper than it seemed on the surface. "Um, I'm an Anthro-wolf…" Terra blinked, "Oh, okay… I guess there's a difference right?" Blaze nodded, but didn't offer anything. Robin however was back to business; "This is great, now we can go four on four! I think a teamed elimination type match might be best; I'll get the Titan mainframe to randomly pick the teams while Cyborg sets the training computer up for a standard run followed by an open battle." Everyone agreed to this and went about helping Robin and Cyborg get everything ready…

"Okay," Robin said as everyone stood in the shade of the tower, looking over the training grounds, "You all understand that there will be no fatal blows or moves used right?" Everyone nodded there understanding; "Okay, here are the teams the mainframe put together: Team A will be me, Starfire, Mystic and Raven, and team B will be Cyborg, Beast Boy, Terra and Blaze…" Robin thought it funny that the mainframe had put him with most of the Titans West, girls, and as such, Terra with most of the boys, still, he had used a random match up program without any modifiers' so it was all fair. "Let's take five minuets and get some game plans set up." Cyborg said as everyone gathered around their team leaders.

"Terra and Blaze are the ones we'll need to pay the most attention to." Robin said as his three teammates looked from him to the other team and back, "Raven, Mystic, you two will have to contain Blaze and keep Terra busy, you can't let either of them get any momentum, especially Blaze, he's fast enough to keep up with Kid Flash so you'll need to get to him first…" he looked at Starfire; "Star, you'll help me with Cyborg and Beast Boy." The nodded her understanding.

On the other side of the field, Cyborg was thinking along the same lines; "Raven or Mystic will most likely go for Blaze, so you need to be on you're A game man, Beast Boy, you'll help me keep Mystic and Robin busy while Terra finds a way to "ground" Starfire." Cyborg grinned at his pun while Terra rolled her eyes; "Oh like I've never heard that before… Will do tin man." Cyborg nodded and held out his hand; "Okay y'all, keep moving, watch each other's backs and stay loose…" Team B put their hands in and pumped them up then down and hollered: "Titans!" as Team A stretched and loosened up.

"Are you all ready?" Robin asked as the teams lined up; "Born ready fearless leader." Blaze quipped as a loud speaker started the count down: _"3… 2… 1… Start!"_

Instantly Raven shot dark ebony tendrils of her soul self at Blaze, trying to grab him, which he countered by dodging and blocking with bursts of his blue flames, as Mystic tossed a few stun disks at Terra who blocked with dirt covered hands, "You'll have to do better than THAT Raven…" Blaze quipped as he suddenly dashed into the middle of the arena where Cyborg had gotten into a grappling match with Starfire and Robin had was trying to deal with a green chimpanzee who was mocking him by chattering something that sounded like a butchered "Titans go!" as he jumped and leaped just out of the masked boy's reach…

Raven flew into the air to try to get a clear line of sight on the fury blue-gray blur, but then a clod of dirt hit her in the side of the head; "Think fast!" Terra streaked by on a boulder, dragging Mystic by her cape with a large dirt claw, "LET ME GO YOU DIRT FLINGING CHEAT!" hollered Mystic as she tried to block Terra's kinetic powers and failed, "Oh…" Raven didn't even get to finish her thought, much less voice it as Mystic plowed into her midriff knocking both girls silly. Terra caught the mind reading telekinetic duo in a dirt baseball glove, and dropped them off to the side of the field; "Now girls, I want you to know that you did your best and that's all that—OOFF!" Terra was tackled by Robin who had given up chasing Beast Boy, who was now trying to help Cyborg hold Starfire down, "Galrfot HA'shhil andh' oorft!" the Tamaranian princess was shouting and shoving Cyborg back even as Beast Boy turned into a Brontosaurus and pushed on his metal friends back… "Man Starfare! What did you eat this morning?" The orange skinned girl suddenly paused and thought a moment; "I had waffles with the honey mustard and mint frosting."

Cyborg and Beast Boy both stopped pushing and looked at the girl; "You did?" Cyborg asked as she stood there, "Yes." she then punched the metal teen square in the chest, sending him flying into the green prehistoric Beast Boy's face, knocking them both senseless. "Oh no no NO!" Blaze growled as he dodged a telekinetic blast of dark energy from a pissed off, dirt covered Raven as Mystic charged him throwing a rapid combination of punches, elbows and a few kicks that he took full on; "Hiiyaah!" Mystic shouted as she delivered a savage, telekinetically boosted knee to his ribcage, knocking him back a few steps… Blaze rolled his head around, popping his neck, then he smiled at her; "Care to try again?" It hadn't even fazed him! "AHHYA!" Robin brought his staff down across Blaze's head, bending the titanium weapon in half; the wolf-boy simply shook his head and snorted; "Are you even trying?" Robin gaped; just how tough was Blaze? "Azarath Metrion Zinthos!" Raven launched a large tendril of her soulself at Blaze, and like a blur, he sidestepped it and jumped up into the air and firmly poked Raven's charka stone, forcing her head back and knocking her out cold… "Raven!" Robin and Mystic dashed to where the dark empath was falling and Robin knelt down, and locked his hands together as Mystic jumped into his hands and let him launch her into the air, her wings unfolding as she caught Raven mid-fall… Robin spun on his heel and faced a calm looking Blaze, "Blaze…" The wolf-boy nodded, "She'll be pissed at me for touching her, but she'll be fine." Robin pulled out a pair of titanium knight-sticks and motioned with two fingers for Blaze to bring it. The Angelic lycanthrope tilted his head and smiled; "Are you sure about that Robin?" Blaze suddenly asked from behind the masked boy. Robin bent and kicked behind him then spun and swung at his fur-covered teammate with a rapid fury that blurred his hands and feet, yet he couldn't even connect. "Even if I just took it, you'd wear yourself out long before I'd cave…" Robin grunted; "Who said I was going to take you down?" Blaze ducked as Mystic's foot arced through the air right where his head had been a heartbeat before, "Nice one. But just a tad predictable." The Navy blue clad anthro-wolf flipped to the side next, dodging a trio of stun disks, and a bird-a-rang as Mystic and Robin pressed the attack… "You know," Blaze said as he bobbed and weaved between Mystic's staff and Robin's knight-sticks; "I'd have thought that Starfire would have joined in by now… am I right Korry?" Blaze leaned to one side and reached his hand behind his shoulder and caught the Tamaranian's fist and then rotated at the hips and threw Starfire away with surprising ease. "Why did you wait?" Robin asked as he landed on Blaze's shoulders and jammed his thumb into the Angelic half-breed's neck, looking for a pressure point, "To tell you?" Blaze said as he pried the impressively firm grip off his body, "Yes." the Boy Wonder said as he back flipped away, giving Mystic a clear shot as she put out a burst of red flames at him. Blaze crossed his forearms and blocked the stream of fire, then he took to the air, his long flaming blue spirit wings bursting out and pushing him into the air, where he met a barrage of star-bolts, Blaze held his hand out and drew the green solar fire into a single large ball of energy, which he then absorbed into his hand. "Yummy… I like honey mustard…" Blaze smirked as he dodged and blocked all of Starfire's attacks and then sent her spiraling off into the roof of the tower. "Hey bird-boy! The tower is out of bounds right?" "Yes and so are you…" Blaze turned and faced Mystic, who was hovering, her arms crossed over her dirty uniform, and her eyes glowed a red color that tinted the lenses of her mask a dark pink… Blaze spoke softly; "You can't hurt me remember? I've done nothing that's against the rules Mystic…" She hauled back and gave him a flaming telekinetic fist to the face, popping every knuckle in her fingers and cracking several bones in her wrist as well as finally staggering the cocky celestially spawned boy. "Ow…" she smirked and this time planted an hot armored boot in his gut; "Ooof!" Blaze drifted back, and then righted himself, looking at the slightly disfigured smoldering boot. "MYSTIC! BLAZE! _ENOUGH!_" Robin shouted up at his teammates, who where floating high above him and the field. Blaze smirked; "You're boyfriend's yelling at us." Mystic dropped her jaw in shock, and her eyes stopped glowing as she hung there in the air staring at Blaze…


	12. An Outburst of Passion

Hope you all enjoy this... I worked my butt off on it!

ESB

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"What did you say?" she whispered as they hung there, slowly circling in the air above the training grounds. Blaze arched his eyebrows, "You heard me." Mystic reached up and tugged at her mask before she hit the power point that deactivated the small bonding charge that held it to her face. Pulling the mask off she leaned in and hissed at Blaze; "How did you… Never mind, I know how, but what I want to know is why?" Blaze crossed his arms and sighed, "Well what _I_ want to know is why… But more to the point, I want to know why you have such an issue with me?" Mystic glared her blue-green eyes at him, "Do you want the short list?" He shrugged. "Fine, one: you're way too cocky. Two: you assume too much. Three: the last time I checked, you where just some angelic half-bread, not Doctor Phil, all the prophecy and messenger stone bunk not withstanding. Four: what right do you have to make a pass at me, and act like I what I think doesn't count? I mean, just cause you're a cute guy from another level of realty who happens to have a crush on me because I remind you of your mother…" Her cheeks slightly tinted she stopped and shook her head; this was getting tiresome and pointless. Blaze shook his head; "Yosh n' yada, and a bag from Prada. Look, you've yet to really say anything I don't already know. What I don't know, or at least understand is why do you bottle everything up? You like Robin? Then stop acting like a three year old about it and just tell him, so what if he doesn't like you like that? That will hurt for a lot less time than the wondering will, which will eat at you until you go nuts." Mystic widened her eyes and shook her head, "Because it's not that simple! In case you've missed it, and it's obvious you have, Starfire and Robin are growing very close; I don't want to break that up! They're my friends!" Blaze furrowed his brow and took a deep breath, then spoke slowly; "So let me see if I'm reading you correctly here; you put everyone on a level far above yourself, while you hold your self value at next to nothing, and you think that by denying yourself, you will fix what you think is wrong with your very existence." Blaze shook his head, "You're only going to hurt everyone if you keep that up. 'Love your neighbor as yourself' comes to mind here, but you're only problem is that you don't even love yourself…"  
Mystic floated there, tears forming in her eyes as her furry teammate read her mail to her and hit almost every raw nerve in her psyche with a sledgehammer. "… You… Y-you have no clue what you're talking about…" she sucked in a deep breath then screamed at him; "AND YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO SAY SUCH THINGS! You… You! YOU ARROGANT, THOUGHTLESS BOY!" she then spun in the air and delivered a fiery roundhouse kick to his face before she laid into him, throwing red hot fireballs and punches at him, screaming out, hitting and kicking his torso, and biting one of his large furry ears to the point of drawing blood. And Blaze just took it until she exhausted her self and her frustration and slowly floated down to the ground sobbing lightly, hot blue blood staining the corner of her small round mouth, as tears streamed down her face. "Mystic? What happened? What did Blaze say?" Robin walked over to his teammate and friend and held his hand out to her, but she shrugged away, and turned her head in shame. "Friend Mystic, what did the Blaze say?" Starfire had landed and walked over to Robin and Mystic, rubbing her wrist as she looked from one teen to the other, in confusion. Mystic looked over her shoulder at Robin and Starfire, _'They deserve to be happy… they don't need me here to mess things up for them…'_ she then looked up at Blaze as he drifted to the ground a few yards away, _'And they don't need the burning blue jerk to mess everything up either…'_

"Mystic… Destiny, what happened?" Robin's voice was equal parts steel and concern as he stepped up to his longtime friend, and kept a steady gaze on Blaze who was standing a ways off, a questioning look on his face. Mystic looked at the ground and sighed, "William and I are just having a… difference of opinion…" Blaze rolled his light blue eyes and snorted; "Slander and lies… She's mad because I just stepped on her toes about… certain people and the relationships thereof…" Robin glared at Blaze as Starfire walked up to Mystic and laid a comforting hand on her shoulder, "Mystic, please, if Friend Blaze has upset you, then he should apologize and make things right… Friends should not be upset with each other without making it right." Blaze motioned Robin closer and the Boy wonder leaned in his arms crossed, "Look, Destiny's got a few… Issues with me, because I kinda' bring out stuff that she likes to hide." Robin knit his brow, "Like?" Blaze shook his head, "No dice Robin, She'll have to tell you, I'm not getting into any more trouble over her lack of… Well it's her problem and I think we can help her with it, but only if she lets us, and right now, she won't let us…" Robin huffed then pointed at the tower, "Get inside… Trainings over. Star, Mystic, help me with the others…"But Robin—" Robin held his green gloved hand up and shook his head; "Not now Korry… Please… We'll set things right soon enough, but for now, lets just all get inside…"

At that point Terra walked up and looked at everyone with a question mark on her face; "What's all the yelling about? Who's the arrogant thoughtless boy and what did he do?" Mystic glared at Blaze, "Ask the great blue blunder…" she then stormed off to find Raven as she couldn't pickup Cyborg, and Beast boy had just stumbled up holding his slightly bleeding nose; "Dude… what is th' deal with all the yelling? I'm trying to enjoy a concussion here…" Blaze sighed; "You'll find out soon enough Gar."

"Boy did he step into it…" Terra remarked to Beast Boy as she tossed a can of red energy drink at him. She sat down at the kitchen counter looking across the room at Cyborg who had just finished tightening a few joint seals and was buffing out a small scratch on his chest-plate, as Raven sat on the floor next to the couch trying to calm her nerves.  
No small wonder as muffled shouting could be heard in the briefing room next door, the main voices being that of Robin and Mystic, and the target of said shouting being Blaze…

"That's IT…" Raven said quietly as she suddenly stood and stalked to the door that connected the two rooms. She waved her hand and the doors fell open with a loud clanging noise as she projected a set of black orbs from her hand and sent them into the room ahead of her; the shouting suddenly stopped and the shadowy spell caster slipped inside quietly. Suddenly her throaty rasp shouted: "SHUT UP! HE'S RIGHT! YOU'RE BOTH WRONG! GET OVER IT!" The TV then blew up and Raven emerged a few seconds later and pointed at Beast Boy; "You. Me. Rooftop. _Now_." Beast Boy blinked and nodded, "Uhh, okay Raven." Cyborg blinked at Raven then shrugged and walked over and sat next Terra. "Man, I don't know what's going on here, but I'm glad I'm not in the middle of it." Terra shook her head; "I think we'll all get pulled into this one way or the other, if what you Gar and Raven told me is true." Cyborg nodded at that; "It is and you're right… there's just something, I don't know… Epic about Will. You dig what I'm saying?" Terra nodded that she did; "Yeah, I mean, there's just this, I don't know, aura about him."

"Slow down Gar, I'm not one of your video games…" "Oh sorry… Um, like this?" "… P-perfect" Raven gasped slightly as her eyes widened and she moaned lightly as Beast Boy worked her shoulders with his hands and a small set of pops was heard. "Wow…" Beast Boy said as Raven let a deep breath out and relaxed under his hands. He worked her muscles' carefully and noted the tone to her; "Ya know I never said this before, but I could never figure out how you could hit so hard, while being so, well trim." Raven's eyes where closed, and she faced away from the green skinned boy but her eyebrow arched slightly anyway, "Explain." Beast Boy shrugged, "I guess it's that whole "half demon" thing, your muscles' are thicker and a bit denser that a normal persons… So I guess you have a slight degree of super strength kinda' like me…" Raven rocked her head side to side and more pops and cracks sounded, as did a relived sigh. "That's a fair guess Gar… Thank you." she stood up from her spot on the roof and turned then gave BB a hand up and hugged him; "I'm glad we get along like we do… I know I can be difficult sometimes…" "As can I." Beast Boy interjected with a smile. "Yes, you certainly can be… But, you're a much kinder person by nature than I am. Thank you for being so kind to me… even when I didn't deserve it." Beast Boy stroked Raven's soft violet hair and gently kissed her cheek, "Hey, who are you and what have you done with Raven?" she smiled lightly and blushed slightly, "You know you just made me smile right?"  
"Yeah." So why aren't you doing a victory dance?" Beast Boy smiled lightly at her, "Oh I will, but I don't want to ruin the moment just yet." Raven arched her eyebrows and smirked, "Okay, who are you and what have you done with Beast Boy?" They shared a small laugh as they held the hug a bit longer…

"Destiny, how long have we known each other?" Without the mask Robin, was now Dick Grayson. He sat on the edge of the table holding the bridge of his nose with his thumb and middle finger as his index finger slowly rubbed his forehead. "Since I was ten. So, almost four and a half years…" Mystic, or rather Destiny, sat in one of the steel chairs, her head bowed slightly as she fiddled with the edge of her cape, her ocean blue eyes looking at random places on the tabletop. "And in all the years we've known one another, how many times have you seen me loose my temper? Especially when training?" Dick looked over his right shoulder at his friend, his bright blue eyes looking much too tired and old for his just now seventeen years. "Just a few times over all, but only twice while training." "Right." He stood up and turned to face her then continued; "And in all the times I've lost control, have I ever struck or attacked a teammate?" She dropped her head; Dick was growing into Bruce each time he had to be a leader instead of a friend…  
She answered quietly: "No." she started to feel like she was thirteen again, Bruce pushing her harder and harder, Barbra, being oh so perfect in her eyes… Bruce never yelled at _her_, never told _her_ to try harder, to go faster, hit smarter, block better … Dick's voice invaded her thoughts: "Do you know why?" she kept her gaze on the table; _'Because you're not a mutated freak with an anger problem?'_ She thought to herself before speaking, "Because you find ways to channel your anger into motivation, and try not to waste time pointlessly expending energy on emotion." Dick blinked, that was textbook Bruce, and as much as respect Robin had for Batman, there where fundamental differences in worldview and of personal policy as well as the execution thereof. Still, one simply couldn't be raised by a person for almost seven years and spending five of them under their direct authority without picking up some things. "Well partly, but it never happened because I made the choice to never strike a fellow hero, unless I had to take them down. That's something I've only had to do once, and I hope I never have to do it again." Dick pulled one of the other chairs around and sat in it, "Look Destiny, you're a passionate person, you just don't always know how to express yourself. You need to find an outlet of some kind, writing, videogames, music, something. Trust me, I don't just play video games to best Vic and Gar. I do it because it lets me workout my frustration without hurting anyone… Or myself." Destiny blinked slightly, she wasn't sure if Dick knew about her sometimes cutting herself, as her healing powers allowed her to heal wounds, there wasn't any proof that she'd ever been hurt…  
She bit her lip slightly and nodded quickly… maybe writing would be a good thing, she did like to read a lot so writing would likely be easy for her… And it was certainly better that what she _had_ been doing; "Okay… I'll find something… I promise." Dick smiled kindly at her, "Good to hear, and remember Destiny; if you ever need to talk, I'm here, Raven's here and Gar's always ready to listen to his friends, even if his advice isn't always, well, practical." Destiny smiled slightly at that and nodded. "Oh and Destiny," She looked back at Dick as he put his mask back on; "I want you to try and be patient with William. I know you two kinda hit it off when you first met, and I also can see that he bugs you for some reason." He paused and rested a hand on her arm, "Don't let the little things ruin what might be a good friendship okay?" She thought about that and nodded, "Okay Robin, I'll try."

"Dude no way!" "Come again?" Beast Boy had been bugging Cyborg while he was cooking up a batch of hamburgers on the stove as Blaze had walked in drawn by the smell of cooking meat. Blaze had just answered the robotic teens question about what he had done to set her off during training. "I said I like her, and was trying to help her face personal issue I saw, but according to Robin I'm "Way too blunt" in my approach." The other Titans stood there and stared at the newest Titan blinking. "Well okay, so you like Mystic, that's cool!" Cyborg said with a big smile, then he and Beast Boy leaned in close, their eyes dark with danger; "But be warned!" Beast Boy said as he pointed at Blaze, "If you hurt her in anyway, shape or form…" Cyborg said as his cybernetic eye glowed brightly at the furry Titan, an evil smile on his face, "We'll make you pay in sooo many ways dude, you'll wish you'd never met us…" Beast Boy finished, his teeth suddenly long and sharp. Blaze gulped then blinked as he nodded slowly. "Sounds fair…"

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R&R Por Favor Mah Peeps! 


	13. The HIVE Strikes Back

This may be my last Update for a month or two... Bwhaha! Suffer much?

ESB

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Like it had countless times before, the alarm sounded and Robin called out to his teammates; "Titans! Trouble!" typing furiously Cyborg brought up a video feed; "It's the East side National Bank… Looks like the Hive are back in town… I say we give them a classic Titans welcome…" The young heroes dashed from the monitor into the elevator… "You ready to rock and roll?" Cyborg asked Terra as they raced out the door, "Only if you and The Boy Wonder can bring the noise…" Cyborg grinned; "Done." "Saweet, then we'll bring tha' heat!" Blaze hooted as he and Mystic took to the air behind Raven and Starfire as Terra led the way with Robin and Cyborg on a large flying rock, Beast Boy flying right behind them as a hawk…

"Move it crud muchers! Those stinking Titans will be here in a few minuets! Grab that gold and let's bolt!" Gizmo scampered about pointing and yelling at the thawed out Hive five members, who now actually numbered five, as they raided the vault, "Keep them hostages' in that office Billy! Mammoth can carry that!" "Uhh yokay' Gizmo, we got it!" the red clad boy, or rather, "boys" walked back to an office with white frosted glass for walls. Kid Wykid, was carrying an arm full of steel boxes packed with valuables when he paused and looked at the door as if looking for something… He then vanished into the floor to keep from being trampled by Mammoth; "Hey! Don't just stand there spooky! Help us!" The darkly robed, red eyed boy suddenly stepped out of the shadows holding his boxes but was still looking at the door.

"Boom."

"What?" Gizmo asked as he looked behind himself wondering who had spoken, there wasn't anyone there, or at least he didn't see anyone.

"I said boom."

Gizmo, See-more and Kid Wykid spun looking to the other side of the room; Blaze and Beast Boy stood ready for action. "What is this? Only two of you? And the animal boys to top it off? HA!" the green elf boy and the Angelic lycanthrope smirked; "Dude, you have no clue do you?" Beast boy pointed behind them; Robin and Mystic stood there, bo-staffs out and ready to go. See-more blinked his large single eye, "Oh… what? Wait… Uh, Gizmo? I think that we need to bolt like five minuets ago man…" "He's right; you should have." Raven said as she and Starfire landed to the young villains' right, "But it's a little late now, so why not go easy on yourselves and drop the loot and raise your hands nice and easy like?" Cyborg and Terra now completed the box the Hive Five now found themselves in. "Aww CRUD! I TOLD you to MOVE IT!" Gizmo was fuming as he, Mammoth, See-more, and Kid Wykid stood there surrounded by the eight Titans, "Give it up Hive, you're out matched and out numbered." Robin stood there, ready for anything. Well, almost anything…

"Bun-ziiiiiy!!!" Suddenly, from behind Robin and Mystic came a dozen copies of Billy Numerous, jumping into flying tackles, dropkicks and "winged" elbows' and other wrestling type of attacks, "GET THEM!" Gizmo shouted as his cyber pack grew legs and he pulled out a large kick-tazer, "Titans! G- WHOA!" Robin jumped to the side, narrowly missing an elbow to the head, but moving right into a fist to the ribs, "Ooff!" "Robin!" Mystic yelled as she back-flipped away from the chaotic charge of Billy Numerous, into a crouch on a table, which she then jumped off as Mammoth threw a large wooden desk at her. "Scramble! Scramble go!" Blaze shouted as he went hand-to-hand with a dozen more Billy's that had come running from the glass offices in the back of the bank, some wielding lamps and chairs and even fountain pens of all things.

"RrrAHHG!" Cyborg transformed his arm into his sonic cannon and started to fire at See-more and Kid Wykid as Terra started to pull all the dirt, pebbles and dust in the building towards herself, forming a pair of bulky earthen fists, "Special delivery!" she shouted as she launched the fists at Mammoth, hitting him square in the chest, knocking him back.

Suddenly a large crash sounded and a black and yellow armored van like vehicle stopped in the middle of the large room "SIR! Private HIVE the Wheelman reporting as—HOLY BISCUITS!" The yellow masked bandit gapped out the windshield at the sight of _eight_ Titans doing battle with his team, which, thanks to Billy Numerous, currently out numbered the titans an easy four to one. Not that it mattered, as Blaze by himself could take most of the HIVE blind folded or with his furry paw like hands tied behind him, as born out by a navy blue blur suddenly taking the many red clad copies down. "Nice trick, but superior numbers are no match for superior _fire_ power!" Blaze laughed at that, as Cyborg and Beast Boy dealt with Mammoth, Starfire and Raven tag-teaming on Kid Wykid and Private HIVE as See-more and Gizmo blasted at Terra, Mystic and Robin, who where pinned behind the far row of stone pillars in the back of the bank. "Need a hand?" He asked as he suddenly appeared next to Terra who was pulling all the dirt and stone dust she could into a small shield, "That'd be nice." She grunted as she closed her yellowy eyes and focused her power even more. "Why not just use one of the pillars?" Blaze said as he formed a few small blue fireballs over his fingertips, Terra growled back at him; "Because I'm trying to not completely wreck the place or bring the roof down on top of all of us. THAT'S why." A few larger chunks' of stone and concrete fell to the ground, and then slid along the floor to Terra. , "Where are the others?" Terra called as objects' started to be thrown at them by the dark energy bursts that Kid Wykid was putting out. Robin's communicator went off and he answered it only to curse under his breath… "What?!?" Mystic asked as she tossed a few fireballs around the pillar. Robin yelled at his teammates: "Cyborg called and said Kid Wykid sent him and the others through a portal and now they're in the middle of downtown!" "Oh great!" Blaze said as he shot a burst of flame from his palm around the corner at the hive, who redoubled their efforts with shouts, energy blasts and more thrown debris.

"I have a plan!" Robin shouted at Blaze and Terra as he and Mystic started to stick Flash-disks to each other; "Terra, Blaze, give then a barrage of dirt and then flame, so I can toss this at them!" "ROBIN NO!" Mystic shouted, fear in her voice as a small rocket slammed into the wall behind them, pelting this with hot concrete. "No arguments! Get ready!" Mystic tugged on her friends arm and pleaded; "At least let me put a shield around you!" Robin nodded, "Do it! On three everyone! One… Two… THREE!" Terra burst her shield into palm sized dirt balls and launched them at speed around the pillar she stood behind, sending a small cloud of dirt at the Hive. Blaze followed up with a flamethrower like attack that burned up the next wave of debris.

"Robin! NOW!" Mystic shouted as she covered the boy wonder with a telekinetic shield, "DOWN!" Robin yelled as the flash disks sailed through the air at the large bulk of Mammoth who stood center stage, a large long desk above his head, "Mammoth! Heads up!" See-more called out a second too late; "Huh?!?" with a deafening pop and flash of light the large red haired teen as well as his teammate See-more where momentarily struck blind and dumb. "COVER THE BAT BRATS SNOT SUCKERS!" Gizmo yelled as he pulled out a rather large blaster from his belt and started to fire away with little thought to really hitting anything meaningful… "Everyone back!" Mystic yelled as she cartwheeled away from the center of the back wall, "Mystic!" Blaze shouted as a stray beam of energy hit the fire bending telepaths upper arm, she grunted loudly and fell on her back, sliding a few feet on the tile floor, the skin on her arm burned raw. Putting up a shield of pure thought , Mystic rolled onto her knees and then rolled behind a large pillar taking cover next to Terra, "Damm!! We gotta get that blaster thingy away from Gizmo!" "Oh Really? I had no clue…" Mystic groaned as her arm went numb and her powers wavered slightly. Robin was jumping through the air, bo-staff above his head as he smashed down on See-more's head, cracking the large lens and knocking the boy unconscious. Right before Kid Wykid knocked _him_ out with a burst of dark energy.

Suddenly a dark portal appeared in front of the Titan girls and out stepped Kid Wykid and Mammoth, who had an evil grin on his slightly burned face as he slammed the floor with his fists, sending a shockwave of broken tile at Terra which slammed into her knocking the blond geomancer senseless. "Terra!" Mystic shouted as she sent a telepathic blast at Kid Wykid, knocking him back into the wall dazing him, as she jumped to her feet, but she was cut off by the large form of Mammoth; "Lights out cutie!" Mystic gasped as she covered herself with a weak shield of thought and braced for the blow… A loud crack was heard and Mystic waited for the pain and darkness, but it never came. She opened her eyes in time to see a stunned Mammoth fall to the ground his mouth bloody and jaw slack, apparently broken. "Don't flatter yourself ugly." Blaze stood to the side rubbing his fist and cracking his knuckles as Kid Wykid shook his head and formed dark bolts of thought on his hands and crouched to attack, "DOWN!" Mystic shouted as the dark energy flew at them and missed. "Night, night Titans!" Gizmo laughed, as he blasted at Mystic, "NO!" Blaze shouted as he jumped in the way and took the beam of bright red energy full on and fell to the ground in a heap, "BLAZE!" She tried to get to him, but then a burning moved over her skin and she found her self falling to the ground next to him, her body hot and numb, her mind fading: _'So this is it… I'm going to die in battle… I never got to find out more about my friends or life or love or…'_

A clanging and loud bang sounded followed by a bright light as she felt herself falling and falling into an abyss…

"Raven! Stop playing with spook boy and finish him!" Cyborg said as he fired his sonic cannon at the door blocking van. Raven's eyes glowed white as she pressed her fingers to her temples and grunted; "I _am_…"

Suddenly The Hive appeared out in the street surprised at there sudden change of surroundings. "Oh crud…" Gizmo said as he was blasted by Cyborg's Sonic Cannon and knocked into the side of the bank building. Starfire and Raven pounced on Kid Wykid and Private HIVE knocking them out cold while Beast Boy, as a hippo, pinned Mammoth down. "Raven! Find Robin and the others!" Cyborg said as he cuffed a now passed out and cyberpack-less Gizmo and then helped Beast Boy and Starfire with the rest of the hive.

"Robin!" Raven landed softly next to the shifting Boy Wonder as he groaned and rolled his head to the side, looking for his team; "Wh-where's Terra?" Raven looked and found the blond headed girl slumped over with a small gash on the side of her forehead, "She's over there, out cold. Where are Mystic and Blaze?" Robin pointed to a scorched piece of tiled floor where a smashed, basketball sized slivery orb sat. "Robin, there not there, it just one of Gizmo's… Oh my god." Raven blinked her dark eyes and scanned the room for any sign of her friends and teammate.

She found none…

Mystic and Blaze where gone…

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HAHAHAHAH!  
Suffer!  
And I won't Update until the reviews DOUBLE on this so I expect at LEAST 3 more reviews! 


	14. Lost and Found

Okay, the next 2 chapters will be my last updates for about a month... I simply couldn't help myself so...  
Enjoy! ESB

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Blaze awoke, face down, in a pile of leaves, half blind and feeling like he had been run through a meat grinder, "Ohhh… man…" 

He slowly forced himself up onto his hands and knees and looked around, seeing double, everything was green and brown and red and yellow… Why was he was in a forest?

"Hello? Anyone else out here?" Blaze reached up and rubbed his ears, there was muffled ringing that seemed to make his head hurt more, so the shook his head trying to clear it, but that only made it worse: "Owwww dammit!" The Wolf-boy held his aching head in his fur covered hands as the world spun and his brain pounded the backside of his ears and eyes like a sledgehammer. Slowly sitting up, he knelt there and blinked as the pain ebbed away and a shrill whistle and pop suddenly sounded in his head as his hearing cleared up so that he could hear the sounds of the forest: The wind in the trees, the sound of a small stream, a rabbit hopping along a small trail, the grass moving in the breeze, the sound of a girl crying… girl crying? Slowly and weakly, Blaze forced himself up to his feet, then fell back onto his hands and knees as the sound of a girl sobbing lightly tickled his ears. Moving by sound, he crawled at the source until the voice clicked in his memory; "Mystic?" he stopped when he heard a soft gasp and heard her heart beat fluctuate in speed, "Hello? Robin? BB?" her voice was full of pain and she had tried to mask a fair amount of fear… Blaze inched closer and spoke hoarsely; "Nope, it's Blaze… Are you hurt bad Mystic?" She sobbed lightly, then whispered; "… is there anyone else there?" Blaze stopped, his feelings hurt slightly, but he paused and looked around and took a long sniff at the air; no other Titan was near by. "It's just us and trees for about a mile Destiny… Are you hurt?" William blinked and looked up slightly closing one eye so he could see; Mystic was lying on her side, holding her arm, which was red, swollen and burned badly. Her face was covered in dust and her cape was tattered as was her leggings and vest, which was missing a bit from the top left side, near the injury on her arm.

Blaze retried his question; "Mystic, how bad are you hurt?" "… Bad enough..." She answered as she looked up at him, her mask missing the lenses, letting him see her blue-green eyes and the pain they held. "I think my arm may be broken… It also feels burned on the inside, like, well the muscle is cooked." She closed her eyes and slowly shook her head, "And my com-unit is dead." Will reached down to the small pocket on his trim fitting pants leg and pulled his communicator out and flipped it open: It was dead as well. "Same here, can you get up?" "I-I don't know, I haven't tried yet." Destiny shifted her weight and sat up then slowly stood and wobbled slightly before William caught her; "Easy, tell you what, you lean on me and help me, because I'm seeing double right now, it's not to bad, but I'd like some help not tripping okay?" He felt her grip his arm as his sight blanked out then came back somewhat fuzzy. She spoke weakly; "Okay… but where do we go, I mean… You know, what direction do we head in?" He stood there and thought, then he took a long whiff of the air and pointed; "That way for now, there's a stream and the trees are thicker there, which will be good as I can smell rain in the air." Destiny looked at him and blinked, _'He could smell all of that?'_ she had to question him now, "Are you sure?" William nodded as his sight cleared slightly, "Yeah, I got the magic nose remember?" "Oh." She shook her head at that; he _was_ cocky, but apparently, not without good reason.

After an hour of slowly walking through the trees, the two lost and wounded Titans found the stream and a small stone cave in the side of a large hill covered in trees bushes and changing leaves. By this point, they had found that there powers where shorted out so Mystic couldn't heal herself and Blaze couldn't fly, and neither one make any fire at all. "This sucks. What did Gizmonky hit us with anyway?" William muttered as he carried Destiny piggyback into the small cave as a light mist started to filter down through the trees, "Got me," She replied as he slowly let her down, "But whatever it was it seems to block or scramble powers. At least… It didn't kill us." She looked up at him questioningly when he grunted slightly and winced. She noted the side of his suit was darker than it should have been. "Blaze… How badly are you hurt?" He waved her off, "No better or worse than you… I'll live." She huffed at him "Look macho doggy, this isn't the time to play tough-guy, if you're hurt bad, say so. It's not like I'd think less of you." He looked down at her and rolled his eyes; "Yeah, hard to do that when you think so little of me to begin with." She closed her eyes and bowed her head and muttered. "I don't hate you Blaze I just… You just… Oh I don't know." William closed his eyes and silently cursed himself for that remark, it wasn't fair or needed and yet he had said it anyways. "I'm sorry, I just… I don't know, I guess I get sick of being treated like devil spawn for being myself." _'Oh and that was so much better? IDIOT!'_  
Will turned and looked out of the cave opening and sighed, he really hurt, but he knew that he'd live… or at least he should. Still, it didn't give him a right to be mean or grouchy with her. "Don't sweat it Destiny, I'm hurt but I'll live." He stood there then started walking out, "I'm going to gather some wood and stuff, we're not gonna get anywhere else today, and it's going to rain soon… I guess I don't need to tell you to stay put right?" he looked over his shoulder at her a slight smile on his face. She shook her head; "Nope, I'm going to sit here and wait for you to get back so I can sleep. So get going, I'm tired." He nodded and walked off into the woods…

"So what are the leaves for again?" She asked as he dropped a third armful onto the ground next to the hard packed dirt and stone wall of the cave. "To sleep on, unless you like getting sick from sleeping on the cold dirt ground…" William wearily answered as he pulled the three thick saplings he had gotten, into a simple box frame, the cave wall being the fourth piece. He then started to dig and pack and move the leaves and dirt around, and after about fifteen minuets, he had a good sized, box shaped nest like bed made from the saplings, dirt and leaves. "There." He said wiping the light bit of sweaty foam off his forehead and arms. "There? We're going to sleep in that? It's not that big and I don't want to share a bed with a guy who has a history of hormone crazed urges what drive him nuts." Destiny closed her eyes and shook her head; that has the angry part of her talking, the part that was being driven by the pain in her arm. William sighed and threw his head back then slowly replied, his voice condescending; "_We're_ not sleeping in it, _you_ are, I'm sleeping a bit closer to the opening of the cave to guard you while you rest and catch up on your beauty sleep, and right now sister, you need it bad." Blaze had been facing the other way, working on a simple spear when he had bit back at her, so when he turned he felt like crap when he saw the sad look on her face as her eyes watered slightly. "Look… I'm… I'm sorry Destiny. I'm just… It's just me being frustrated and not caring to think before I respond… I didn't mean any of it really, I mean, you look bad because you're worn out and hurt…" he closed his eyes and shifted his weight, but that caused him to take a sharp breath and whine slightly. "Blaze?" Destiny asked as she looked up into his face to see the pain in it. "Yeah?" he asked, his voice hoarse and tight as he opened his eyes and relaxed his jaw. "Take your top off." She didn't ask, or even order, but _demanded_ it of him. He just blinked at her, "What?" Destiny took on an air of authority; "You heard me: Take your damm top off." "And just who the hell died and made you the great gooey guru?" He retorted as he turned and faced her fully, the dark spot on his gray and navy top slightly lighter now. She folded her good arm under her bad one and stared him down; "No one _died_, but as a senior member of the Teen Titans, I think that any leadership defaults to me." Will snorted, "Oh really? Coming from the girl who was ready to just roll over and die out in the middle of a clearing and had no clue what the hell to do to save her sorry round butt? I don't think so. If we're gonna get out of this or at least live more than a week out here, then it's gonna have to be a tour de force in teamwork, and little sister, that means you need to lighten the hell up and cut me a little slack. Cause I _know_ want I'm about' out here, and you _don't_." He crouched down next to her and looked her in the eye and spoke softly, "No brag, just fact. You dig?" she looked at him with a slightly quizzical look in her eyes. "Where the hell did you pick up all that old slang?" Will sighed and pulled his top up. Some of the fur was scorched off and the slate blue skin under that was blistered and had bled in places. Destiny closed her eyes and looked away, "I'm… Blaze, I'm sorry I can't help you with that." He slowly rolled the titanium weave back down and nodded; "Look, I didn't want you to worry. It hurts badly. But I think I'll recover okay so don't sweat it." She nodded then looked out the cave mouth; it was raining softly but black clouds could be seen off above the trees. It would only get worse. "How will we start a fire?" she asked as she pointed at the small stack of wood William had next to the back of the cave. "With this…" he held up a small piece of gray flint rock, and then pulled his communicator out and opened it. He bent over a small pile of leaves and twigs and then struck the flint with this side of the open Com-unit; it sparked each time they hit and on the third strike, the sparks caught the tinder and soon a small flame was going… Before long, a small, yet warm fire was burning between the cave mouth and the nest.

"Time to get you to bed." Will said as he slowly and painfully moved to pick Destiny up as her knee was swollen up badly as well as her burned arm. "I'm getting really cold Blaze… Please stay close." Will nodded then he pointed to the nest like bed he had made then moved closer and held his arms out, slowly and kindly; "Here I'll tell you what… I give you my word that I won't try anything. I'll keep you warm and safe until we can get back in contact with the others." he held out his hand and looked her in the face, his eyes bright and clear. Oh god those baby-blue eyes; she could have simply drowned in them, "I… I know I can trust you Blaze… Thank you…" She took his hand and let him lift her to her feet and carry her to the nest of leaves, grass, and dirt he had made for her. He held her up then laid her in the middle of the nest, before taking her tattered cape and laying it over her wounded body… "Please Destiny, call me Will. I wish I could do more but… Are you comfortable?" She nodded slightly; "Yes, thank you… Will, Thank you very much." Mystic paused and looked at his face, his furry, round kind face looked worn and haggard, and it seemed to age him far beyond his years... "Are you okay?" she asked looking up at him, a trace of worry on her face, "I'm tired and I hurt, but I'm better off than you right now, thank you, but please… don't worry about me…" a sad look drifted into his eyes; "I've been through much worse." She nodded, and then winced as she moved her arm slightly… it was starting to hurt more and without her powers, it would only get worse, unless Blaze had first aid training. "Are you hurting again?" he asked as he checked her over for more injuries or bleeding, "Y-yeah, I… I think the bone in my arm is cracked… I know it's not broken, but it's feels like more than just a deep bruise." William gently felt the arm and listened carefully for any sounds of cracked or broken bones. He found none, "I think it just may be a really deep burn and that the deep tissue is reacting and the ligament and bone is getting rubbed on, but I can't tell for sure." She nodded her understanding then closed her eyes and shivered slightly. He knelt over her then slowly pealed out of his top and gently lay down next to her and slipped his arm under her shoulders and then pulled her in close and cradled her to his chest like he had done for his sister so many times in the past. He pulled his open jacket-like top over them and sighed lightly as he closed his eyes.

Destiny let him hold her and she remembered the feelings she had felt that first time they had met; they where now returning full force and then some, but this time, she lacked the strength and the will to fight them off. And for whatever reason, she not only didn't mind, but she was truly enjoying it.

William lay there holding her gently in his arms and as he did, he felt all the feelings he had bottled up and forgotten about just a few short months ago, slowly grow and warm his heart and mind, and he let himself enjoy it ever so slightly even as he drifted off into a light sleep.

Destiny lay there in the safety and warmth of Will's strong fur covered arms as the cold, cold rain fell outside and she felt a chill settle in the air, but it didn't seem too bad as she carefully rested her injured arm on his warm broad chest.

Destiny then laid her head on Will's chest and closed her eyes, listening to the strong steady rhythm of his powerful heart and enjoyed the feel of his thick, soft fur… She took a deep breath, and let his scent wash over her… he smelled like… a flame… like a campfire, or the fireplace in her old room back in Wayne manor…

The sweet Smokey flavor of burnt wood-spice and earth…

She remembered the time Bruce had taken her and Dick to California during the summer, and they had seen a wild fire; it had been a bit frightening, but the smell was surprisingly nice; all that wood and brush, and the scorched earth… it was a scent that she never forgot…

And now, that same powerful smell was surrounding her now as she lay on William, his arm wrapped kindly, protectively, lovingly around her middle, his other hand now held her hand and gently rubbed her fingers, soothing her… It was then that she knew it… Never before had she felt so alive and safe at the same time; she now knew she was desperately, hopelessly, and possibly forever…

In love…

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R&R PLEASE!!!! I GIVE YOU UBER WEB COOKIES!!! 


	15. Questions and Verses

YAY 4 DRAMA!!!  
FYI: I Own only the story idea and Blaze and his family... Destiny owns Mystic and The Teen Titans belong to CN and WB And DC  
ENJOY DEAR READERS!

ESB

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_Meanwhile_

"Is there any way we can be sure?" Cyborg sighed and closed his eye as he knelt at the small yellow and black tactical computer he had gotten Raven pull out of the T-car for him. After J.P.D. had hauled the HIVE off, and a medic team had checked Terra out, Robin, Beast Boy and Starfire had searched the whole bank for Mystic and Blaze, while Cyborg and Raven went back to the tower and got the newly rebuilt (yet again) T-car as well as a few tools. The cybernetic teen looked up at the fearless leader of the Titans and shook his head; "Man Robin, I've only just last week started to look into the mechanics of specific yield plasma discharge weapons, and that was just out of random interest. I never thought that Gizmo would have the means or reason to build a hand held version of the most powerful tactical bomb anyone's ever thought of… Until now…" "Whoa," Terra said as she sat next to Starfire on the downward folded side doors of the white and blue T-car, drinking some water; "So you mean short, ugly and mouthy built like the worlds most bad-assed hand grenade and blew up our friends? Damm…" Cyborg nodded grimly as he typed some more and then clicked on a small video file and showed it to the others; "Basically, yes. See, a plasma yield bomb is unique because unlike other bombs which get bigger and need more fuel and explosive to be more powerful, a stable plasma cortex sphere is simply hit with a controlled burst of first pure oxygen, then a small amount of electrically charged lithium and then, 'Boom' it goes off. The size of the explosion is based on how much oxygen hits the plasma first." Beast Boy scratched his head, "Sooo like it works kinda like a glow in the dark sticker; the more or longer you let light hit it, the more it glows?" the other Titans looked at the green changeling and blinked. "Well… Yeah," Cyborg said as he looked at his friend nodding, "I guess it kinda does work like that B." Starfire raised her hand then spoke; "But friend Cyborg, what of the excess oxygen? Would that not change the effect of the detonation?" The part metal teen rubbed the fleshy part of his head and sighed; "No, that gets burned off by the plasma sphere when it expands…" Cyborg then started to type on the computer and his eyes lit up; "As should the casing the whole device is held in!" Raven then turned and looked at the scorched round steel casing they had found and her eyes widened, "So you're saying that it may not have been a plasma yield grenade but something else?" Then Robin spoke up; "Like what? So far there's not a trace of either of them, who cares what kind of device it is or was, if our friends are still dead." Everyone stopped and slowly looked at the boy wonder stone-faced. Starfire broke the silence first: "Robin, please… Have you given up hope for them? Do you not think they could have survived?" Robin crossed his arms and looked hard at the ground; "I don't know Starfire. I want to believe they did, but it really looks like they didn't." Raven closed her eyes and a single tear rolled down her cheek.

Three days later… 

"I know this is hard on you and your team, but you have to face facts; the odds are that they where killed, and if even if they somehow survived, then they are likely in an alternate reality and are as good as dead." Robin simply nodded at the Dark Knight's image on the video screen as the rest of his team stood behind him, much like the Justice League was behind Batman. "But we don't KNOW anything for certain do we?" Every pair of eyes both in space on the Watch Tower and in Titans Tower looked at the green skinned boy and he blushed darkly when he realized it; "Uh, ah… What I mean is, um, how do we have a funeral without bodies?" Everyone looked at him for a few heartbeats before Superman spoke up; "May I?" "Be my guest." Batman answered as they switched places, Superman now standing front and center as he spoke to the grieving teen heroes, "Listen, I know that this is… hard. Trust me, we know; we've all been there, grieving the loss of an ally and friend. But you need to look at this in as simple terms as you possibly can. The simple fact is that they aren't there anymore. Be they dead or displaced. Mystic and Blaze can no longer fight by you're side, but I'm sure that they would want you to mourn them, and then move on." Martian Manhunter then spoke up, "And you forget; it is a memorial service. You are not really burying them, but remembering them, and honoring what they stood for, as they would have done for you." Wonder Woman smiled sadly at them as she spoke up; "And besides, if you remember them with this and keep fighting, they never really die, a small part of them will live on in you're hearts for ever." "And when the next Titan falls we'll do the same, until we're _all_ dead." Every eye then looked at Raven as she stood there in her cloak, her violet eyes shimmering lightly in the shadow of her hood as she looked back at them and spoke again, her voice low and full of sorrow; "You act like they're really DEAD! Well there not… THERE NOT!" The wall behind the Titans cracked and a circuit in Cyborg's arm blew out with a pop and a wisp of smoke, "I can still feel them! Both of them, and you can't tell if they died or not but you're all ready to put on a memorial and build a set of statues for them! DON'T! You CAN'T!" She shook with emotion and every chair in the room crumbled as the doors fell out of the frame and Raven fell to her knees sobbing… Beast Boy and Cyborg knelt next to her and helped her out of the room, as Robin stood there looking at the video screen; "Give us the room." Starfire and Terra nodded and left going after the others. "That means you too." Batman said as the rest of the JL stayed in place, then one by one left the room in the Watch Tower, leaving Batman and his heir apparent Robin alone, connected only by a highly encrypted signal. "Do you still trust her?" "With my life, every single waking moment of every day." Batman looked at his protégé through the slant eyed, armored cowl that had made him famous. Robin stared right back with his white soul-less domino mask, set in an ever-present glare. "Why do you continue to question us? It only creates distrust and undermines your efforts in the end." Robin kept his steely voice even and neutral as he fired the first volley. Batman replied as the great tactician and detective he was: "I only question things than need answers, like for instance; Why did you cook up that story about Blaze's parents? Anyone with the time and resources could find out that they don't exist here. In all honesty Dick, a methuman father and alien mother? The odds of them having a child are four-hundred and seventy to one, at best, and for it to be a healthy baby doubles the odds. Add in the powers and the odds multiply twenty fold for it not happening." "How long did it take you to work all that out, with a head start and a pair of super computers? A few weeks? A month? Bruce, the average Joe citizen really could care less about where any of us heroes come from. They only care about us doing our job and keeping things as safe as we can. And before you say a word about our enemies, I know, and that's why we've kept the cover as simple and sparse as we can. Simply the only thing that really proves Will exists is himself and a small gemstone. There simply isn't anything else out there." Dick folded his arms and stood there waiting. Bruce didn't disappoint; "Trigon proves he exists and is here." Robin leaned forward and hissed; "And yet we've found nothing, and you've found nothing. All we have is a crappy video and Raven's gut, and then there's nothing out there. Trigon's not on earth as far as we know. He was here, but he's gone now." Batman nodded, "And that is the problem; if he's not here, then he's somewhere he's safe and can grow strong."

"And what do you suggest?" Robin asked his voice dripping with distain. Batman answered with authority: "Ask your expert. Oh, and find a new slayer." Batman cut the feed and Robin was left looking at a blue screen with the Justice Leagues insignia floating in he middle. He punched the console, cracking it in several places, and walked out of the room…

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Teh Uber Cookies are waiting! 


	16. Of Family and Friends

_Somewhere in northern Oregon…_

For the fifth morning in a row, Destiny awoke with her face buried in William's warm, fur covered chest, his arm wrapped lightly around her and a warm, thin cover spread over they're slowly healing bodies. This day however, they where under a deer skin blanket Will had made from a young buck he had killed two days ago.

Destiny slowly opened her ocean blue eyes and looked up at the long and wide furry nose of Blaze the Fire Wolf and fellow Titan as he dozed peacefully a slight smile on his fur covered lips. She fought the urge to kiss him and then took stock of herself,

'_I'm stuck in the woods with an angelic fire bending werewolf who's nursing us both back to some level of health, while our powers slowly comeback and I'm not worried about us ever getting out of here… What the HELL is wrong with me?!?'_

She mentally shook her head as she closed her eyes and tried to be objective; _'He's kept his word and hasn't tried anything and he's done a great job of taking care of me all while nursing a wound that must hurt like hell… This is like some fairy tale where the brave hero saves the poor damsel by sacrificing himself for her.'_ She bristled inside at that thought; she was NOT a poor helpless girl, yet in the current settings and given her condition, she wasn't self-sufficient either and that bugged her. She had fought so hard to be able to fight and care for herself, to be free of Batman and his oppressively dark and over bearing person, to choose her own fate and rule her destiny apart from Bruce. She did think of him as a father, but, he was a hard man to please, and it had seemed to her while growing up under his rule that she would never measure up to Dick or Barbra. That combined with her naturally frail self-image and background set her up to fight being or appearing weak to the point of recklessness. She knew her problems well, but had yet to find a way to fix them or change what she saw as the root of her biggest weakness. Destiny lightly sighed into the chill morning air and tried to calm her mind, as she opened her eyes and saw golden rays of sunlight shine on the top of the trees outside the cave, it was a nice picture to wake up to.

William yawned widely, his long, hot gray tongue curled lightly as he his shook his head clear and blinked the sleep from his big baby blue's and stretched his neck, eliciting a few large pops that helped to get his blood flowing. He looked down at Destiny's honey gold hair and smiled, "Good morning, it's day five of camp and I have some great news, if I had a car, Raven would have thrown it at Cinderblock by now so I won't need insurance from _Geico_!" She looked up at him and rolled her eyes groaning as she slowly pushed herself into a sitting position and looked over her shoulder at him; "Where do you come up with you're jokes Will? I swear half of them are worse than Gar's for crying out loud." She smirked at him good naturedly as she stretched her good arm out and gently gave her injured arm a once over; the swelling had gone down in her arm as well as her knee, but the skin was still very red. However, William had foraged and found a few herbs and plants to ease the pain and help the healing process along, so her arm was slowly growing stronger and less stiff. She stood and flexed her arm a few times before working it up and down. As she moved it, she bit her lower lip lightly to cope with the sore numb stiffness she felt in it. She also was fighting a light headache, her eyes twitching as she felt the clam & happy, yet slightly worried aura that where Will's emotions; her powers where coming back. "Hey William, my powers are starting to come back. I can feel you're aura again." She half-turned and looked at him as he sat up and stretched his arms out. She couldn't help but stare at his lean ripped upper torso and the thick dense cords of warm muscle that rippled under his fur covered skin. _'Oh my god, am I really that attracted to him?'_ she found herself chewing on the inside of her lower lip as she mulled that over; _'What would that be called? I mean, he's __**part**__ human, but he's also part angel and demigod as well as wolf and tiger… That's not… Bestiality… is it?'_ She was fairly open minded about most things in life, but that was balanced with a conservative set of morals and she didn't think much of deviants, of any kind or on any level, and to think that she might over step her own personal boundary's in such a way disturbed her.

"What are you thinking so hard about Destiny?" She started slightly and blinked as she looked down at him, her brow shifting from tightly knit to fully arched as her mind raced for a reasonable answer.

"Umm, well…" _'Just ask him and get it over with.'_ She thought to herself as she stood there with the deerskin wrapped around her; "William… Do you mind if I ask a personal question?" Will looked up at her and shrugged before he stood and then bent over and touched his toes then stretched some more. _'Wow… He really is ripped isn't he? Focus dammit! Ask him!'_ "Umm, I guess my question is this; how human are you really? I mean, _what_ exactly are you?" She wet her lips slightly then looked from his chest to his eyes; they seemed puzzled, "Well I guess if you want a simple answer, I'm not human. But really I am kind of half human seeing as my grandfather on my momma's side was half human and my grandparents on my dad's side where both human. Well pop was a meta but still human by law." William looked up thoughtfully and continued: "My dad is an Avatar of a deity, so he's half human and half anthro-demigod, momma's half angel and half anthro, so she has human blood in her but she's more angel than anything else." He looked back at her and spread his arms out helplessly, "So I guess that makes me an Angelic cross-breed of sorts. Right?" Destiny nodded, his reasoning and explanation made sense, granted not a whole lot, but it was enough to put her mind at rest as to her attraction for him; _'So then he's a kind of angel… 'No… he's not, he's a sentient angelic humanoid with animal blood in him… I guess there are much worse beings to like… Oh god, did I just fully admitted to liking him!?!'_ Destiny felt a touch of warmth flow into her cheeks so she turned herself away and slowly stepped to the mouth of the cave.

"Hey, umm, why do you ask? I mean if you where just wondering or it was a random question that's fine I guess, but it just seems a bit… Oh I don't know." Will scratched his slightly floppy ears with his furry paw-like hand and shook his head a bit, his ears, and tongue making a light slapping noise. "Oh, well I guess I was just wondering. I mean… I only know the basics about you. Well a few other things but nothing really personal." She looked back at him as she sat on a large rock at the cave opening and fixed the deerskin around her shoulders. She looked at him quizzically and tilted her head; she really didn't know all that much about her teammate. Well it wasn't like they had all that much to do other than sleep, eat and heal. "So… Tell me about yourself William. I remember you talked about the Titans back home a little, tell me about the level of reality where you're from."

Will nodded and crouched down onto all fours a few feet away from her and cleared his throat; "Well… let's see… Oh here's something; back home, all the Titans are older. Due to a time difference or whatever, the Titans are all like seventeen or older, and they're just called the Titans, not the Teen Titans. And we work with the Justice League insomuch that we stick to earth, keeping things under control as much as we can when the League's off saving some far away planet or whatever." Will laced his fingers together and the stretched them out, popping his knuckles loudly. Destiny blinked at him, "Crap, that sounded like a string of firecrackers' Blaze." He just rolled his eyes at her. She smiled at him slightly then continued her "interview"… "So what else is there? What about family? You've mentioned you're mother and father a few times, so tell me about them."

William shot a quick puzzled look at Destiny then nodded at her. "Well okay, umm well my dad's really cool, because he's this avatar for the Celtic demigod of fire and wrath and my mother is one of only three children born to a Terra Angel and an anthro-tiger named Kit Sun-tau, who was an infamous freedom fighter in China way back in the 1940's." "Wow, that's something." Destiny said as she shifted her position slightly and listened to him. "Yeah, but that's where things really kinda go down hill, see my mom was a twin, but there was a fortune or something about her and her sister, and because of it, her father gave my mom and aunt English names and sent them off with grandma to Australia. But in the process of there trip, the ship they where on was attacked by Japanese privateers and grandma had to abandon Alisha… See she was more human looking than my mom, her name's Jessica by the way, well mom had wings and the palest baby blue eyes anyone had ever heard of..."

Destiny nodded as she looked at William's baby-blue eyes… They where so pale and bright, and had streaks of smoke gray and were rimed with dark royal blue. "Like yours?" She had spoken without thinking and no sooner had the words passed her lips then she looked away, blushing lightly, a surge of girlish longing and embarrassment hitting her suddenly as she slowly looked back into his eyes bracing for his reply.

William twisted his lips slightly and blinked, Destiny was acting… different… "Well yeah… In fact, my sister has my dad's dark blue eyes… and she looks more human than I do, she has cat ears and a tail and furry paw like hands, and soft short brown fur on them. But the rest of her is just freckly skin." He looked into her blue-green eyes and smiled kindly before he looked outside and sighed.

"What's her name?" Destiny leaned in slightly as she studied him; she was noticing some sadness in his features and was feeling some of his emotions now as well. "Christina is her legal name, and she does answer to it, but her given name, and the one she prefers is Kitary. It's a rough Celtic feminine take on Kit Sun-tau, which means wise child of light." He bowed his head slightly and closed his eyes, thinking.

"You miss you're family a lot huh?" He nodded slightly as a single tear leaked out of the corner of his eye, which he quickly wiped away with the back of his hand. She looked at the ground, "If you want to stop, I understand." "No," He shook his head and looked at her, "It's okay… I mean I don't mind, sometimes it helps me to deal by just talking." She looked up and smiled knowingly and nodded. He started again; "My sister is basically… Well was, my world. Other than being a Titan, nothing else really mattered to me… Especially, for that time when momma and dad where separated…" Destiny blinked slightly at that as he spoke softly. She would have never guessed that his parents had ever separated based on how he spoke of them. "…It was hard on her, and the trauma caused her brain to start swelling… That unlocked all kinds of problems; she had these blackouts where she couldn't remember more than her name and where she was. She'd forget about me or dad or where she lived. It was hardest on Dad and Kit because she had a hard time connecting with Kit and she had a strange trust issue with dad. I was the only person she seemed to be able to identify with. But Dad stuck it out and after she had that operation, she got slowly better." Destiny looked at him and saw him in a new light. "Wow, that's… wow…" William nodded, "Yeah, I don't know what I would have done without Kitary; taking care of mom was… hard. As much as she raised and took care of me, I did the same for her. But Kit, she was like the only one of us who never ever gave up and… All she ever had to do was smile and the world seemed a better place." William chewed on his lips a bit before he rocked back and looked up into her eyes; there was a kind of understanding and sympathy in them.

"What about yourself?" He asked as he leaned onto his side and looked out at the forest.

'_Oh no… Not that, please Will, anything but that!'_

"Oh, there's not much to me, I was orphaned and then was adopted by Batman's alter ego, then raised and trained just like Robin."

'_Only I was the child of a homeless college student who fell into debt to a cut-throat pimp…'_ Destiny then looked at her hands as she dug some dirt out from her nails, hoping that he wouldn't push for more.

"Oh, that's kinda cool." He looked at her; she seemed nervous about something. _'I wonder what she's not telling me?'_ he thought to himself as he looked back outside. "Did you ever know you're folks?" She clenched her jaw slightly then spoke carefully; "My mother died when I was nine, but I never met my father. He was in the army and died in a chopper crash. When I was little." Most of that was true; her mother had always told her that her father was in the army. But to be honest, she didn't know if her father was dead or not, as the man had been one of her mothers "supporters" as she had called them. _'She was just a scared girl, not much older than I am now… And they used her and her needs to feed their lustful itch… The bastards…'_

"You're dad was a bastard?"

Destiny's eye's when wide at his question; she then cursed herself for not figuring that if her powers where coming back, then Blaze's would as well.

She dropped her head, "How much did you pick up on?" He blinked, "I'm not sure, I was listening to you talk, then it was like you paused before you started to mumble a bit and I only caught "dad army and bastard" in that order… Did I miss something?"

Destiny kept her head down and voice low as she answered; "Not too much. I didn't have a dad until I was about eleven, and Bruce is a hard man to please." She bit her lower lip and closed her eyes; why did Will always get to her? What was it that made him poke her where it hurt?

"So what was it like? Being on the streets I mean?" His voice was soft, the light and mellow timber of his slightly feral tenor was somehow calming. She looked up at him slowly; _'How did he know that?'_ "What makes you think I was on the streets?" He shrugged, "Well you lived in Gotham, and if your Gotham is anything like mine, the family services department is way under funded and barely functions, so lots of kids end up on the street. Hell, it even happens in Jump, but just not as easily." His voice betrayed that he was speaking from experience.

"Some days it was okay; I got to go wherever I could get around to, I could spend all day in the park, watch the sunrise over the ocean or set over the forest, or go to the library and read… So long as I was somewhat clean at least." She didn't mention the day that the head librarian had quietly asked her to not come any more after she had hit puberty and she had just started to blossom. She didn't see the looks boys and some men where giving her due to the poor and slightly revealing state of her clothing until that day, and it didn't take very long for her to connect that with her mother and what had happened to her… It had shattered almost all of the innocence she had left…

William closed his eyes as he also remembered a time in his life when he and his sister where on there own, on the dark streets of Leap, a kind of sister city to Jump, only it was everything dark about his home town, and nothing good.

"What about you? You seem to know a thing or two about street life." She asked as a few clouds started to quickly form in the sky over the trees.

"Just before my momma when to see an Anthro specialist, Me and Kit where apartment sitting for her at her old place, which she hadn't fully moved out of yet when some two-bit hood with robots attacked the city. My dad was working as a liaison for the Titans and the JL at the time so he went to help fight off the horde. Anyway, momma had one of her blackouts and she left Jump. She came by her apartment and grabbed a gym bag and stuffed some cloths in it and then hailed a cab. All while me and Kit are sound asleep in the guest room." He went on to explain how Kitary had woken him up crying with half the furnishings in the apartment floating or sliding around from her powers acting up due to her distress. He sighed and lay on his back and kept going; "So after I got her calmed down, she begged me to track momma down. Well at first, I said no, dad could do it better faster and safer then I could, then she gave me a sad look that could have melted solid rock, so how could I say no?" He then told her how they had tracked their mother to Leap, only to lose her, and being as young as they where, where ill prepared for their adventure and had spent almost two full months on the streets until they where found by Beast Boy and their father Fire Wolf and where taken home to there recovering mother.

"Wow Blaze… I'd have never guessed that had ever happened to you…" she slowly slid down off the rock and sat cross legged next to him, and pulled the deer skin blanket tighter around her. "You're a very loyal and brave guy. I'm sorry I've treated you like I have. It's not fair or right." She extended her hand in truce and he took it and shook it once firmly yet gently a slight smile on his fur covered face; "Life's not fair Des, but a little kindness goes a long way right?" She smiled kindly at him, "Right… Friends?" He nodded back at her, "Friends."

"Deal." She said as her eyes sparkled slightly at him… She suddenly felt herself want to kiss him, and as she slowly started to lean in she entertained the thought of giving him the mother of all kissed but she reeled herself in just in time to move quickly and simply kiss his soft furry cheek. _'Dammit! What is wrong with me?!?'_

'_Wow… She kissed me…'_ William thought to himself as he blinked at her before he snorted slightly and smiled. "Thanks… I kinda needed that." She blushed brightly and mumbled a "you're welcome" at the ground as a light rain started to fall.

They piled into the nest and lay next to each other, Destiny with her cape over her, and William with the top to his suit over him, the deerskin spread over them both, each one alone with there thoughts, yet together in more ways than one…

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Heavy much on the "Aww" Factor? I didn't think so...

Review PLEASE!!!!!


	17. Science Class

Here it is; the next to last chapter before all hell breaks loose... really... it's about to hit the fan...

"Standard Disclaimer"

ESB

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_Titans Tower_

"An Ion flux displacement charge?" Terra blinked at Cyborg before taking a sip of her soda and shaking her head; "Sorry Cy, you'll have to speak idiot on this, I have no clue what that is." Cyborg pointed to the screen on his laptop and explained, "Okay, you know what Ion's are right?" Terra nodded, so he continued; "Well an Ion Flux is like… Imagine a big bowl of ping-pong balls, then take them and color about a third of them green and the others leave white. Now say that you had a high amount of nickel in the green paint—" "But nickel isn't found in paint." Terra said a slight smirk on her face. Cyborg nodded, "Yeah but just say we have it in the green paint okay?" she rolled her eyes at him. "Anyway, take an electromagnet and pulse it, what happens?" Terra thought about it then answered; "The green balls will move with the pulse right?" "Bingo." Cyborg smiled then expanded on that, "See, an Ion Flux does the same thing, only with the right frequencies' and energy output, you can get a displacement field. As a result you get an unstable transporter device." Terra blinked again then spoke slowly; "So… Then that's what Gizmo tossed at Blaze and Mystic and that means that Raven's right and there not dead?" Cyborg held his hand up for a high-five, "Bull's eye." Terra slapped hands with him then paused, "So then how do we find them?" Cyborg frowned at that; "That's the only catch: There's no real way to track something like that." Terra slumped, even if she didn't know Mystic or Blaze that well, they where Titans and she knew what that meant to her after she had betrayed and then saved them. This felt almost as bad. Then, inspiration struck: "Cy wait! I just thought of something! If everything you said is true, then if it transported them someplace, wouldn't there be like an energy spike or something like that wherever they end up?"

Cyborg thought about that, then nodded; "Sure I guess so. But how does that… Wait… BOOYAH!" Cyborg dashed to the door of the garage and ran up the stairs at full speed. "Uh, glad to help Vic." Terra smiled a slightly puzzled smile to herself as she thumbed a stray lock of her long blond hair back…

"Let me get this straight Vic; you're asking me to help you get access to the Justice League's satellite network and the archives so that you can look for energy anomaly's?" Robin stood in his doorway looking at his tall cybernetic friend who just asked him to hack one of, if not THE most complex and secure computer systems on earth, if not in the galaxy. "Yeah, I think I have a shot at finding Destiny and William. Assuming they ended up somewhere on earth that is." Dick sighed; he'd give just about anything to get Destiny and William back, but this was flirting with the fine line between stupid and brilliant, with crazy being obviously an equal partner in both. "You do know what you're asking me to do right?" Robin stood there and crossed his arms. Cyborg nodded and ran his hand over his head; "I know it, but if I thought that they'd let us access if we only asked, then I'd never even suggest it." Robin nodded at that, "Well I'll help you, but we ask first, you pitch the idea you and Terra came up with and I'll take responsibility." Victor nodded, "Sounds good."

"So you and Terra think you know how to find them?" Beast Boy stood behind Cyborg and Robin as they packed a few tools and things into the T-ship and prepped it for take off. "Yeah B, Terra and I came up with a theory, and Robin and I worked out all the details, and amazingly, the JL weren't all stuffy and they've allowed us to go to the Watchtower and try it." Garfield scratched his head; "But why do you have to go to the Watchtower? Can't you try out you're idea here?" "The Computer system that holds ALL the archives for the league is a closed system," Robin explained as he tossed a gym bag into the inner storage compartment, then stood there looking at the green Titan, "To access the readings from the last week, we'll have to be there and transfer the data from the archives physically via jump drive." Cyborg stepped into the cockpit then yelled over the noise of the hangar's roof doors opening; "That and the JL's mainframe OS is incompatible with the Titan Mainframe…" Beast Boy blinked slightly then nodded, "Oh, okay… Well good luck!" He waved from inside the small observation booth as the T-ship lifted off and flew into the upper atmosphere at high speed…

Some forty minuets later, Robin and Cyborg where in the main control room of the Watchtower with a small camera sized device plugged into a console that allowed them to tap the Justice League's earth orbit satellite network. This was the very network that let them monitor just about every square foot of the planet's surface and in some cases even below ground and under the sea. Martian Manhunter, AKA "John Jones" (J'onn J'onz) stood just to the side and helped the young heroes work the system and set the parameters for their search; "Do you have an approximant figure on the energy output or type?" His thick southern Mars accent could almost be mistaken for eastern European. Almost… Cyborg nodded; "I crunched the numbers myself, we're looking for an Ion flux discharge field with a high end sub-atomic frequency on the order of sixty-seven thousand mega hertz per square micrometer." The green alien's red tinted eyes blinked. Cyborg shrugged, "Give or take one to three thousand hertz." The Martian nodded as he started to input that information into the computer, "And if you don't find it?"

Robin kept his gaze on the screen in front of him; "Then we know one place they're not." Jones regarded the teen then finished his part. "Here we go…" Cyborg pressed the command button and held his breath. The screen stayed the same for a few seconds then displayed a list of four events that matched the search criteria; one in West Africa, one in the middle of the south pacific and two on the west coast of North America…

That happened within five minuets of each other…

Robin eliminated the African and Pacific events from the list because they had happened two and four days after Mystic and Blaze had vanished. Cyborg however just stared at the screen as a single tear rolled down his cheek; "Booyah…"

"WHHHOOOOOHOOOO!" Beast Boy couldn't stop jumping up and down as he and Starfire yelled and danced with joy at the news Cyborg and Robin had called in; they had a place to look. And based on the inferred imagery, it seemed that there where two people about the right sizes' and genders in the middle of the Oregon forest about forty miles north of Portland. They and Raven and Terra gathered a few things and got ready for the T-ship to arrive…

_About one hour later_

Slowly flying over the search area, Cyborg kept his systems jacked into the T-Ship's on board computers, and tapped all the information that Raven and Beast Boy where receiving from its sensors while Robin flew the ship with a masterfully skilled and patient hand as Starfire looked out of her canopy with a pair of binoculars, looking manually.

"There! Just a bit to the right!" Beast Boy called over the intercom as the ship neared the end of its third sweep of the area, "How far to the right?" Robin asked as he slowed down even more, bringing the ship almost into a dead-stop hover. "Three degrees to the east, make you're heading zero, zero five and hold that until Cyborg finds a place to land." Raven's calm monotone betrayed her nervousness as they slowly turned and moved along the heading. "I see something!" Starfire called out as she looked closely at a blue-gray mass, move from a stream into the woods, and disappear behind a hill. "I think that was Blaze!" Beast Boy said as he moved a small joystick and pointed an inferred camera at the hill. "Hailing on all Titan frequencies now." Cyborg said as the ship slowly descended closer to the treetops. "Pop a signal flare!" Robin said as he looked at the map display Cyborg had put up, checking the landing zone he had marked…

"Do you hear that?" Blaze asked as he stepped into the cave, his head turned over his shoulder. "Hear what?" Mystic replied as she took the canteen he had made from her cape and some rabbit skins and drank some water from it.  
"A noise, like a jet engine only, I don't know, really small maybe?" William half turned to the cave opening when a faint pop sounded outside, "I smell phosphorous… That's a signal flare…" he walked out and looked around, then shouted; "DESTINY! IT'S THEM I CAN SEE THE T-SHIP!"  
"_What?!?"_ She shouted as she scrambled out of the cave and ran out next to him; "It's the ship! Oh! They found us!" Blaze and Mystic waved and shouted and jumped and hugged each other as the orange and sliver craft slowly descended into a clearing about thirty yards away…

As the T-ship set down in the clearing, Blaze and Mystic walked up to the orange and sliver craft and smiled as their friends exited and rushed to greet there lost comrades. "MYSTIC! BLAZE! It is glorious to see you both alive and unharmed!" Starfire flew into her friends and hugged them for all she was worth, although the way she had grabbed them, Blaze received most of the hug, which was fine with Mystic, as she was still sore and recovering from her injuries. "Korry! AIR!" Blaze then made a noise that was like a cross between a dog yelp and a cat cry, as she held the hug a few moments longer, then remember her strength, "Oh friends! I meant no harm!" Blaze shook his head as he took a long greedy breath. Mystic smiled kindly at her, "It's okay Korry, we missed you as well." "Destiny!" Raven jumped out and landed next to her friend and then looked at her, biting her lip before she threw herself at her friend and hugged her, tears slowly running down her own face; "Oh I knew you where alive, I just knew it…" a surprised Destiny retuned the hug, enjoying the rare emotion her friend was showing.  
"Will!" "Haha! I knew he didn't know how to die!" Hey Gar, Vic, did ya' miss me?" William returned Beast Boy's bear hug and slapped hands with Cyborg, a large smile on his face, "Man how in the name of sanity did you find us? Our Com's where dead!" Cyborg smiled and hooked a thumb at Tara as the willowy blond gave a small hug to Destiny; "Rock n' Roll had a thought and I ran with it and we came up with a theory and Dick and me worked out the details…" Robin nodded as he smiled and shook hands with Blaze then hugged Mystic.  
"We had to get some help from the JL but it worked out just fine." Blaze nodded, "So? Details guys? How'd you pull it off?"  
"Something about croutons or something…" Beast Boy answered. Everyone looked at him blinking, Vic sighed; "BB, it was Ions… NOT croutons…"  
"Oh yeah, right… not food but tiny little bits of… stuff… right?" "Yeah basically." "Ions?" William asked as he scratched his head puzzled.  
"Yeah, Cy was explaining the device Gizmo used when I had a few questions, and after he explained it to me I raised a few more…" Tara then went on to explain the whole story to Destiny and Will…

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Not my best work, but it serves me well for moving the story along...

PLEASE REVIEW!!! I'm begging!!!


	18. Prelude to Darkness

WOW! Over 460 views on this! that means this is my most read story huh? Kewl!

Enjoy this last bit of calm peeps... teh shite ish abooot ta eet teh fanz...  
ESB

"Standerd disclaimer!"

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"… And he didn't try anything at all?" "No he didn't and the thing was I don't think he wanted to, I could tell he was having some internal conflict but with my powers shorted out I have no clue as to what." "Could you guess?" Destiny looked at Rachel and shrugged, "Well I know he likes me, and this last week would bring anyone together, and I must admit, I do feel closer to him, I mean, we did patch everything up and bury the hatchet so to speak." Raven arched her eyebrow and smirked, "Oh really? The great Mystic forgives and forgets now huh? Are you sure he didn't do something to you?" 

"I'm… Raven I'm sure of it; and yes, I really do like Blaze, but I don't have any reason or expiation as to why." Mystic sat on the edge of the roof next to her friend and watched the sunset over the far horizon, the orange ball of flame dipping below the dark blue-green sea, slowly painting the sky hues of red gold and even purple. The light shone on the girls faces with marked contrast; Mystic looked like a masterful painting, her soft, round features matched the light perfectly, whereas Raven looked slightly sickly, her soft grayish skin tone better suited for moonlight or as she preferred, no light.

"Destiny, you need to call it what it is, and that's A; a chemical reaction in you're brain due to the right input, or B; real, honest, and true love." Mystic blinked a bit then nodded; "You mean I need to figure out what it is that makes me feel this way huh?" Raven nodded, "Look, the whole chemical thing happens, but why? I know as well or better than anyone that spiritual things are powerful, and emotions are part of a person's spirit. If you're feeling certain emotions, then there is likely a spiritual link or reason to that." Destiny thought about that; it did make sense and she did believe in things like love and faith and that there was a connection between them and one's spirit.

"So I have one last question for you Rachel." "Shoot." Mystic took a short breath then looked her friend in the eye; "What do you think of Blaze and me as a couple?" Raven blinked then thought about that, and answered; "Well you have little self-esteem and he has enough for three people, you tend to have a hair trigger temper and he never seems to loose his cool, he's cocky as all hell about fixing everything and you're pragmatic at all times…" Mystic rolled her eyes, "A real match made in heaven huh?"

Raven smirked again, "If I wasn't half demon and already taken, I'd hit him like the end of the world…"

"You're just saying that because he said he's going to kill your father."

Raven rolled her eyes; "Yeah, the fastest way to my heart. Go for it Des, you never know if you don't try."

"I'm still just blown away by the fact that you two heal up so pretty." Cyborg was putting some medical equipment away as Blaze pulled his boots back on, then rubbed the still bald spot on his chest, the slate gray skin now smooth and firm rather than blistered and purple like it had been.

Blaze stood up and kicked his boot heels on the tile a bit then turned to face the cybernetic teen; "You're just jealous cos' the fan-girls like my furry ass more than yours." Cyborg shared a grin with Blaze as they walked out of the medical wing and took the elevator up to the common room.

"Yeah sure, but who has the most fan letters?" Victor laughed as William huffed back at him. It was a proven fact that over all Robin and Cyborg got the most fan mail and it was always funny to see Beast Boy and Blaze act all hurt when they fell short, even though Blaze had gotten the lion's share of girl's letters the last time.

"Fan letters are a nice distraction at times, but we have more pressing matters at hand." Robin stood in the kitchen part of the common room, his arms crossed over his chest as he looked at the two boys. Terra and Beast Boy where leaning on the counter behind Robin looking bored and whiny…  
"Oh man, are you forming a "Cleaning detail" again?" Cyborg held his fingers up and made quotation marks with them as he stood there looking disgusted. Robin nodded; "Basically yes, while Raven, Mystic and I help Blaze with his powers, you four will clean the kitchen up."

"Four?" Cyborg asked as he counted the other Titans in the room and came up one short. "Yeah Starfire will help too… As soon as she gets back from the bathroom." "Oh, okay… Um, do you… ?" "Yes Vic, I want the fridge cleaned out as well."  
A collective groan came from Cyborg, Beast Boy and Terra as Robin walked to the elevator with Blaze in tow, "And I want you to do it Vic, I don't want Korry blowing up the fridge again." "_Fine…_" Cyborg called out as he opened the trashcan and moved it over to the refrigerator…

"You've got to focus your energy… think only of forming it, then of what you want the fire to do…" Raven's calm even monotone was behind Blaze as he stood at the starting point of the obstacle course, his eyes closed and hands open as he tried to regain his blue flame…

"Try and just bent this first, maybe you're trying too much at once." Mystic held out her hand and let a bit of orange flame flicker from her fingers.

"Okay." Blaze looked at the flame and his eyes glowed and soon the orange flame was twisting into a long snake like shape.  
"Good! Now try and keep it going on your own." Mystic slowly pulled her hand away and the orange flame slowly turned blue and floated over to Blaze before it faded away.

"Good job, now, do you know what felt different?"  
Blaze nodded at Mystic; "Sure, I felt the same feeling I get when I'm bending flame, but this time I didn't make the flame… I think I know what to do now."

Mystic and Raven Watched as Blaze stood there and stared at a target Robin had set up. His eyes started glowing and as he thrust his palm out, a wave of heat shot from it and the target shuddered from the thermal side draft…

Again Blaze tried and again a wave of heat hit the target, over and over until Raven stopped him; "Okay, that's enough for today, I suggest you try and work on some of the brain teasers Robin and I gave you, it may just take some more mental work for them to fully come back."

Blaze shook his head no, "I can do it Raven, the beam scrambled my powers, not my brain." He took a deep breath and stood there, his eyes piercing and face blank as he stared at the target...

Suddenly his eyes glowed brightly and the target exploded into blue flames. "Toast…" Blaze said quietly as Mystic clapped and Robin nodded with satisfaction. "Can you do it again?" Raven asked as she looked off at the burning pieces of wood.

"Sure. Set up a new one Robin." Blaze rolled his neck around and popped his knuckles as a new target was lowered into place.

This time Blaze shot it in half with his heat vision, the twin beams of pale blue flame cutting it with ease.

"One more time." Raven said as she looked at the two destroyed targets, her dark, purple hued eyes never blinking.

And once more Blaze hit the target, this time with a blue fireball. "I think I got it… I'm feeling a bit tired, but I got it."

Raven and Mystic walked over and checked on him, there hands glowing pale blue and white respectively.

"You need to go and rest, you're mind is tired from having to relearn how to use your powers… some food wouldn't hurt either…" Raven lowered her hand after she spoke as Mystic nodded her agreement.

"Good to have you back up to full power Blaze." Robin said as he took an extinguisher to the burning targets.

"Not quiet full power Robin, but close." Blaze replied as formed a small blue orb of heat on his finger, before letting it dissolve…

_The next day…_

A slow steady rain was falling on Jump as the Titans enjoyed some down time, Cyborg and Beast Boy where in the middle of round twenty-seven of a halo tournament, Mystic was teaching Terra and Starfire to cook food that wasn't potentially hazardous, as Robin and Blaze played an ongoing game of chess while Raven read in the corner.

But all of that was interrupted when the alarm went off; "Titans! Trouble!" Robin back flipped off his chair and ran to the computer…

The face of the newly elected head of the Department of Homeland Security, Jonathan Woods, appeared; he was holding a clipboard and was facing the side, giving orders to someone off screen… He then faced the Titans and nodded; "Ahh, Good to see the Teen Titans are always ready, Robin, I have an urgent request for you and you're team." Robin nodded, "Hello mister Woods, what can the Titans do to help?" Woods leafed through a few papers then spoke; "We've gotten word from one of our few moles in a state side branch of Al' Qaeda that the leaders have gone underground and hired a super villain to attack a major city on the West Coast… We are responding to the major threats as best as we can…" he stopped talking and turned to an aid that was holding a large PDA up to him. He then faced the Titans again; "Okay it's just confirmed; the targets will be malls, sometime in the afternoon… this weekend… We've agents in the field in LA, Long Beach, San Diego, San Jose, San Francisco, Sacramento, Portland, and Seattle, but we are lacking in Leap City, New Coast City, and Jump City. We've contacted the Justice League and they said that they could cover Leap and New Coast, but that you would be best to work Jump, as the JL is currently short handed as well." "What about Dakota City mister Woods?" Cyborg asked as he looked over the map he had split screened on the large monitor. Woods nodded, "We thought about that as well, but there are no known Terrorist groups in that area, however we have contacted Static Shock and Gear and they told us they'd keep an eye out."

Robin nodded grimly, "I can have Kid Flash and Jinx there in an hour, they've worked with Static and Gear before so that will be good…"

Woods nodded again; "Sounds good. Robin how will you be covering the malls in Jump?" Robin looked at his team then back at the screen; "I figure we'll run it under cover, four of us at each mall, Jump has only two, but they're big and we will need at least four of us covering each wing... Is there any other intel you can give us mister Woods?"

The middle aged man shook his head; "No that's all the information we have right now. Thank you Titans and good luck."  
The screen went blank and Robin turned and faced his friends, "Okay, here's how we'll do it, I'll take Mystic, Cyborg and Blaze and we'll cover the north mall, Raven, you and the others will cover the south mall. Vic's got a new batch of Holo-rings fixed up so we can all look normal and fit in."

Everyone at first blinked then nodded in understanding; it would be best to get the drop on the terrorists and that was only going to happen if they blended in, and that would be easiest with the Hologram projection rings.

"What about the Titans in Dakota? Should they have rings too?" Robin looked At Blaze and nodded; "That's a good idea, at the least Jinx could use one… but then we're short a ring here…" "No worries." In a slight like an old horror movie on rewind, Blaze morphed into his human form and grinned. Robin shook his head; "I for got you could do that… Good I'll have Kid Flash pick up Jinx's ring before they head to Dakota. Vic get the rings out and charged." "On it Bird boy!" Cyborg saluted and then when downstairs to his workshop in the garage to get the rings and charge them up…

* * *

HA! Suffer! 


	19. Dusk

Robin sat in his new rolling office chair, his feet propped up on his desk...  
On the desk a small electronic picture frame sat, and every ten or fifteen seconds a new picture would move onto the LCD screen...

The current picture was of the Titan girls; Raven, Starfire, Oracle, Argent, Jinx and Bumble Bee...  
AKA Rachel, Korry, Destiny, Annette or 'Toni' as she liked to be called, Jenn and Karen...

The picture had been taken in Metropolis, about six months ago, and it showed all the girls in there super suits, looking great and heroic and everything... well... not _everything_ but...

Reaching over, Dick picked up the thick notebook sized device and hit a thin button marked "pause" on the back of the frame...  
Looking at the picture his eyes where drawn to three girls in-particular...

Rachel; One of, if not the best friend he'd ever had, a dark and mysterious person he still managed to forge a strong bond with her over the years, and after the defeat of her father Trigon, they had become even closer...  
Close enough for Fans to start writing Robin and Raven romance stories...  
However, Dick and Rachel never even had puppy love for one another, much less anything that would have led anywhere...

Korry; the alien princes was one of a kind, a bright, bold shot of pure sunlight and a breath of fresh air, she was the odds on favorite that _everyone_ banked on for him and Dick had to admit, he'd be lying if he said he wasn't attracted to the lovely golden skinned sprite and her heart of gold... And the fact that she basically worshiped the very ground he walked on and fawned over him constantly didn't hurt…  
And to be honest, after there adventure in Tokyo, He returned her feelings gladly… Now if he could only get over his awkwardness around her…

And then there was Destiny...  
They had basically grown up together, and he knew she was a whole other ball game compared to any girl he knew, she was wide open when it came to life, insofar as fighting crime and living with her friends, but there where a few secrets that she kept that haunted him... not so much that he had to know them, but the fact that they seemed to completely overshadow whole parts of her life bothered him slightly...

Oh sure, he had the whole set of issues and problems with Slade, but he'd come clean about them...  
Destiny however… She seemed to bottle hers up...  
Somewhere, deep inside, she had a grave and maybe fatal wound that needed to be dealt with and even he could see that not William and maybe not even Raven could get to it... Yet...

Dick Sighed as he gave the picture one last look before he hit the button again, and the picture changed to a shot of all the titans that had gone to Metropolis; Cyborg, Beast Boy, Blaze, himself, Speedy, Aqualad, Argent, Bumble Bee, Starfire, Raven, Oracle, Mas Y Minos, Jinx, Kid Flash and Hot Spot...

They where the best of the next generation...

They where the Teen Titans...

* * *

An average height, athletic young man in baggy green cargos and a black & red-layered shirt strolled around the food court of the large Jump City North Mall, the newest and largest of the two malls in the large growing city. His black hair was spiked up in a popular fashion, his black skater shoes lazily thumping on the tile floor as he slowly walked along one of the main corridors of the large by huge building…

At the other end of the mall, a tall well built black boy in dark blue jeans and a navy polo shirt, was busying himself in the arcade on a fighting game, duel master 3, and he was beating it rather quickly; "Aww yeah baby! BOOM! Who's you're daddy?"

At the far eastern end of the mall, a lanky looking black haired boy in baggy green cargos, a faded red shirt, with leather jacket and sunglasses sipped on a soda as he looked at some new cell phones and accessories at a kiosk. His sharp baby-blue eyes noted the trio of cute teenaged girls giggling and whispering while looking in his direction. He shot a cocky half smile at them before moving on…

And in the west wing, looking in the window of DEB, eyeing a burgundy evening dress was a slim, attractive, honey brown haired girl of fifteen to seventeen years, her ocean blue eyes wandering the store through the windows, and ignoring the appraising looks of a few passing boys…

"_Anything sticking out guys?"_ Destiny asked the others mentally as she started to move to the next store, her eyes shifting side to side behind her sunglasses as she stepped into a sunny spot under one of the many skylights in the mall.

"_Nothing yet."_ William answered as he moved into Hot Topic, his eyes drifting to the rack of studded, black leather belts as his ears and mind stayed open and searching.

"_Same here Des, it's quieting down now that the lunch crowd is leaving… Maybe nothing happens today and they hit tomorrow?"_ Cyborg's hopeful voice sounded in everyone's head as they went on, connected mentally through Destiny and her telepathy.

Dick spoke up next; _"We can't count on that Vic, and mister Woods rarely calls on superheroes unless he has a good reason… We just need to keep our eyes open."_

Everyone agreed and kept on patrol in their assigned part of the mall…

"_I think I got something."_ William thought out, as he noted four men dressed in dark baggy pants with gray sweatshirts and backpacks walk in and head for the bathrooms as if there was something very important there.

"_What's up Blaze?"_ Robin asked as he made another lap of the massive food court, this time grabbing a drink from a soda machine near the entrance of the equally large arcade.

"_Four guys, in cookie cutter clothing, toting cheap backpacks with aggressive auras… they just hit the east bathroom."_ William looked around slowly and saw nothing else, then thought out again; _"Robin, do you want me to check it out?"_

Dick thought about it then saw the same basic thing over by the food court; _"Yeah, but don't take them down just yet…"_

"_I think I have something too…"_ Mystic called out mentally as she saw four guys much like Blaze had seen walk into the west restrooms…

This was strange and it smacked of danger. Just the way she liked it.

"_Where?"_ Robin asked as he started to walk to Mystic's end of the mall, his eyes and ears open for anything.

"_West end service doors. Four men just walked in and they didn't have staff uniforms, and they match the description of the guys Blaze saw."_

Dick started to piece the strategic situation together… it was manageable… for now…

Robin walked up to the side of Mystic, who at this point still looked like your average teenaged girl, and in quiet voice he quizzed her about the men she had seen... Like a pair of master super spy's, Robin and Mystic had a barely audible conversation in a crowed public place without drawing any undue attention and looking like they had just about nothing to do with each other...

Their adopted father Bruce Wayne, AKA the Batman, would be very proud...

"_Cyborg, anything in your end of the mall?"_ Robin asked as he slowly moved away from Mystic, his eyes still slightly "glazed" as he looked in the reflection of the mall behind him.

"_Nothing Robin, everything's getting quiet here."_ The Hybrid teen answered, as he walked away from one game and eased over to a water fountain near by.

"_Alright then, cover my end with Mystic while I check out the service area."_

"_I can do it Robin."_ Destiny said in his mind directly, forgoing the common link everyone was sharing.

Dick didn't answer, as he paused and looked in the window of a video game store then turned and smiled at her; _"Wait, Vic, you go and check out the service area while Mystic and I sweep the food court and then loop back to the arcade in case we miss anything… I think that whatever's going to happen, will happen soon."_ He stepped up and started to act a bit shy and then he began to introduce himself to Destiny;

"Uh hi, I'm Richie, I like your shirt." She smiled, knowing that he was acting out, keeping in the character of normal teenaged boy.

"Oh hello, I'm Annie, thanks, it's one of my favorites." This was so lame… But it was basically lip service to keep any lookouts happy.

"_I'm on it Robin, I'll call on the T-Com if I need back up."_ Cyborg walked on out of the arcade, his eyes sweeping the room once as she headed off to the service area.

Dick's com-unit buzzed and rang like a normal cell phone (which it was disguised as) so he apologized and dug it out of his pocket, flipped it open and held it up to his ear:

"Hello?"

"Robin, It's Beast Boy."

"Oh hey, man, whaz' up?"

"Uhh… Oh your still under cover then, okay, then lemme tell you now, we nabbed up Control Freak, and at the same time, grabbed another guy who told us that there is a bomb at the North mall where you guys are, Raven's finishing up with J.P.D. so we'll be there in about fifteen minuets, to help you guys out undercover and all."

Robin blinked; Beast Boy's phone skills where… marginal…the long sentience driving that home, still… a bomb changed everything…

"Sure thing man, thanks for the heads up, laters." Robin shut his cell/com-unit and stuck it back in his pocket, "Sorry, buddy from school, there's gonna be a party not far from here, it's gonna be big, and he said that there'll be a live band there. Wanna go with?"

'_A bomb?!? That's bad…'_ Destiny thought to herself as she fit the old code words together and tapped Dick's mind for details…

"_I'm at the bathrooms, our boys are having a kind of meeting… There talking about objectives… Guy's there are going to be gunman hitting the arcade and both levels of the food court!"_ Blaze's report only added to the danger and complexity of this situation, but Robin was forming a plan…

"_Blaze, take them down, now, quickly and quietly, don't let them leave the room."_ Dick looked at Destiny as he thought this, making sure she understood that he didn't want her to change the message or question him.

She nodded slightly that she understood; "Well it sounds like a neat party, I'd love to go. Did your friend say what time it started?" Destiny flipped her hair a bit, as she made a playful face at Dick, keeping perfectly in character.

"_Be careful Will, please, just call me if you need help at all."_ She made sure that only he could hear the concern in her "voice" as she kept the banter with Dick…

Will had moved to the doorway of the bathrooms and he smirked at Destiny's last comment...  
_'Your joking right? Des you forget that I'm next to bullet proof... and faster that Kid Flash... I got this... Just make sure __**you**__ call out when you need help...'_  
Blaze snuck into the bathrooms proper and saw the four men pulling ski masks over there heads... AAd holding nasty looking sub-machine guns...  
In a burst of fire and light, Will Talbot was gone and the Teen Titan Anthro-wolf, Blaze was standing in the middle of the four gunmen...

"Drop em'..." two of the four listened... the other two opened up on Blaze, but it was not with bullets but a high powered phased energy beam...  
_"Energy weapons! TIM! DES! ABORT! GET THE HELL OUTTA THERE!"_ Will shouted mentally as well as audibly as he bent around the reddish beam of energy...  
His tail was slightly singed as he let a flying spin kick drop the two idiots that had shot at him, but that had given the other two just enough time to pick up there guns, which Blaze melted to slag almost instantly with his fiery gaze...  
"ON YOUR KNEES!" he yelled as he pulled out some high tech restraints, (which where really heavy duty plastic zip-ties) and started to bind them together…

"_What? Blaze what was that?"_ Mystic asked as she and Robin walked to the arcade, when suddenly shouting could be heard in the food court…

"It's a trap! Get Cyborg now!" Blaze ran at crazy speeds from one end of the mall to the other, looking for any other gunmen as well as his teammates'...

"Slade-bots!" Mystic shouted as a volley of bullets and energy beams erupted from the ground floor of the food court, shattering glass and splintering tables, chairs, sales stands and scattering the few (thankfully) mall patrons that where there...

Bolting away from Robin, Destiny grabbed her mask and slapped it onto her face, then charged at a group that had appeared from a service door just past the _Old Navy_ in front of them.

"Mystic!" Robin tossed his still collapsed staff at the largest of the thugs and dropkicked another as he rushed to the aid of his friend and teammate as she fought off the wave of gunmen.

"Find some cover!" Robin shouted as a stray shot slammed into his chest, the armored tunic under his shirt absorbing the energy and protecting him, "Get down Mystic!" he yelled as she darted in and out of the bots and goons, her fists and feet flying, bursts of heat knocking them aside and fireballs melting guns

"Where's Cyborg?!?" She shouted as she dodged and ducked between the bots as they started to shoot again at her, with frighteningly loud energy weapons, "Robin get back!" she shouted as she ducked a small rocket and counted with a telekinetic blast, before she ran for the escalator's and more goons and bots.

"Am I not here or something?" Robin grumbled as he dashed after his faster teammate and caught her and Blaze at the top of an escalator...  
"I got it, find Cyborg!" She called as she saw Robin running up beside her, but Blaze was at the top of the escalator well before Mystic and he turned and faced her, his eyes glowing; "Like hell… They are _MINE_..."  
Jumping off the railing Blaze unfolded his flaming spirit wings and swooped down like an angel of vengeance, twin fire-balls glowing in his hands...  
"EVERYONE DOWN!" He yelled as he let his fire fly at the four thugs...  
"Blaze, wait!" Robin shouted…  
Too late! The Angelic crossbreed dove from the top of the railing and flew down, hands shooting blue fire at the gunmen taking out three of the four in one shot...

Three of the four gunman where thrown across the floor, guns slag and there clothes smoldering...  
_"I'll cap you good Titan!"_ the last gunman said as he aimed and fired his SMG on full rock-and-roll, a laser dot on Will's chest.  
"_Dammit_ Blaze!" Robin muttered as he pulled his only grappling line from a side pocket and shot it into the steel rafters above him and swung down...  
Just in time to see his friend take over two dozen rounds to the chest.  
"FUCKIT!" Robin rarely swore but he was now really pissed off good and proper... however a stray bullet hit his grapple line and he fell the last fifteen feet of his swing and hit the ground, tucked and rolled behind a small tree in a large pot...  
"Mystic! Get J.P.D. NOW!!!" They needed help _fast_, and the others where at least five minutes away at best…

"Go Mystic! Get to Blaze!" If she didn't get to him and pull those bullets out, Blaze would be down for a month getting over the wounds that had most likely knocked him out cold. At least he wouldn't die...

Dark blue blood, gray fur and navy blue titanium mesh littered the floor under Blaze as he swayed there on his knees, which had lightly cratered the tile floor when he had landed hard after he had been shot...  
"Uugghhh... dammit..." his eyes crossed and he fell over onto his side groaning lightly... He really should have seen that coming...  
"B-b-blaze?" a small girl trembled behind the injured Titan as he slowly and painfully pulled himself over to a wall and sat up holding his middle and chest painfuly...  
The thing about being mostly immortal was that stuff might not kill you, but didn't mean it still did not _hurt_...  
"Hi... ow... are you hurt sweetheart?" Even in his pain, Will was a hero, and more than just that, he was a Titan...  
The little brown eyed, brown haired girl couldn't have been more than seven at the most; "No... but you are... are you gonna be okkies?"  
Blaze smiled through the pain and nodded lightly as she knelt next to him...  
"Yeah, it just hurts really bad... where are your parents?"  
Will's sixth sense was starting to buzz again...  
"I-I-I don't know... I got lost..." The girls eyes welled up with big sad tears and Blaze's heart broke; "Well you stay close to me and when the bad guys are caught and it's all safe my friend Oracle and I can help you find them okay?"  
He quickly read her thoughts and found that she had indeed been lost before this whole mess started... but for now he needed to keep his head down and little Jesse safe...  
He wrapped his arm around her and held her close to his side as he they hid out just under the escalator...  
Tapping into the link he and Destiny now shared, William called to her mentally; _"Des... I need your help here... stay low and find me... there are more bad guys in here... but first get to Robin..."_

"_I've already done that, I'm almost to you."_ Mystic spoke into his mind as she worked her way up to the escalator where he was huddled with the small girl...  
This was now basically an all out _**mess...**_

"Hey, how was lunch?" Mystic asked as she ducked down next to Blaze, hands glowing as she started to pull bullets from his chest and heal his wounds over.

"It was hot and tasted funny, I don't think I like lead for lunch, at least I wouldn't recommend it." He coughed slightly and groaned as the last bullet slid out of his chest.

"Sorry Blaze." Mystic said as she worked her powers over him, relieving the pain and closing up all the bleeding inside and out, knowing his body would do the rest given some time.

"Don't worry, just give me a bit of cover so I can get her outta here." Blaze indicated little Jessie, Mystic nodded; "Right, on three?" Blaze nodded as well and Mystic "counted"; "Three!" sending a wave of heat then flame down the corridor she then dashed forward to where Robin was pinned down, a telekinetic blast clearing her bath of debris and Slade-bots...

Outside, Blaze set the girl down a few blocks away from the Mall and then knelt down; "listen to me Jessie, find a police officer and tell them your lost and the Titans need help at the mall okay?" she nodded then wrapped her small frame around him, her arms tight around his neck, "Thank you Blaze… be carfule'…" Blaze nodded and smiled slightly before he trotted back to the mall, but just as he go in side the door…

The guy had come out of nowhere, she hadn't heard his thoughts, she hadn't seen him, he was just simply there before she could react…

And as she saw the barrel of his gun burp out a short burst of flame she had just enough time to twist away while sending a burst of thought at him… it almost worked…

Mystic hit the tile floor with a cry of pain as the heat and pain of three nine millimeter slugs ripping into her left side, tearing her upper arm, shoulder and just biting into her side, cracking a rib, and slightly overloaded her mind with input...

If someone took the time to surf Google, or any other search engine (and in fact many people did) and plugged in the keywords Teen Titans and/or Blaze, one would be taken to a list of about 7400 plus some odd web pages that ranged from fan sites and youtube videos, to news interviews and even the official Teen Titans Web site and two massive Wikipedia pages, all full of pictures, fan art, official and unofficial Bio's and even lists of jokes and sayings and little known "Facts" by and about the popular and well liked young hero...

But they all had one common thread, a thread that was completely false... and for good reason...  
Blaze's heritage, widely know to be that of an Mutant Father, and alien Mother was a lie...

Now however, anyone with two eyes and half a brain would tell that Blaze was far from mortal, and thus, his breeding was now obviously something beyond this world...  
Blaze's super suit was designed to withstand the heat of an atom bomb, but when his ears picked up the sound of Destiny, his best friend, the only family he had in this world, being shot again, and the cry of pain as she fell to her knees reached his ears, he quite literally exploded in a flash of hyper-hot blue flames, slowly melting his suit from his body, his eyes hottest of all...

The paint on the walls started to bubble and blister, the tile floor showed large, blue flaming paw prints melting into the ground, Blaze's boots having burned away in the bursts of his powers, and any glass near him started to slowly melt...  
His spirit wings formed on his back and he slowly rose into the air, the light and heat coming from him caused anyone dumb enough to look at him to be blinded and sun burned as he rose up to the third level of the mall...

**"SLADE! STARTING NOW, YOU WILL PAY FOR YOUR EVIL! AND I'M GOING TO COLLECT!"**

Twin beams of blindingly hot blue holy fire burst from his eyes and burned into every Slade-bot still standing, turning them into slag and dust where they stood...

Landing , Blaze stalked at the one Slade-bot still standing, one that had been hiding in the shadows... One that now stood defyingly in front of the son of rage and love...

A low, soft, lightly accented voice, full of death and cunning evil carried across the mall: **"Hello Blaze... I see you enjoyed my little test... Congratulations are in order, you passed... In fact, you will be pleased to know that, while I am sorry you dear friend Oracle managed to survive my trap, I now have no real interest in her, despite her appealing..."**

"RAAAWHHH!" Blaze leapt at Slade, his hard, black claws fully extended and now glowing white hot, his eyes burning, tears of blue and white fire drifting up out of them, a trail of heat behind him...

"DIE YOU SICK BASTARD!"

Blaze was indeed his father's son...

* * *

Okay, sorry this took so long, but this was a hard chapter to write. I had the basic idea down, and had even Roll Played it with the same charries (but in another context) so I knew how it should turn out... still, there where many little snags that I had to slugh through w/out the help of my muse... forgive me! 

and please Review!!!


	20. The Crimson Night Part 1

"This is the most… Grotesques… String of crimes I've seen in Jump… Bar none, and we have no clue who or what is doing it." Detective Sean O' Toole was the stereotypical Irish cop, a sixth generation officer of the law, his jet black hairline was receding as streaks of sliver where forming on his temples and slowly flowing back along the sides of his short, neat crew cut. He was standing at the head of an alley with Robin and Raven, as the end of the alley swarmed with a dozen CSI's and officers, who where photographing and marking any evidence on and around the slim, curved nude body of a young girl, who had been horribly burned on her wrists, ankles, face chest and privates...

"Any leads at all?" Robin asked, as he looked at the detective, not wanting to look once more at the poor girls' body, the last wave of bile having only now subsided.  
"None." O' Toole sighed as he rubbed his neck and looked down the street. His light brown eyes where dull and weary looking and they matched the deep crows-feet that framed them.

They where in the heavy commercial/residential east side of Jump, about three or four miles from City Hall and the center of the now massive city. Only thirty minuets ago a frantic woman had called in that there was a fire zombie hiding in an alley behind her apartment near a block of restaurants and outlet clothing stores… The police called the Titans and sent a nearby bike patrol to check it out and begin evacuating people if needed. When they arrived minuets later, they only found a smoldering, dead girl, barely sixteen years old, her dark blue eyes glassy, locked forever in a state of sheer terror and infinite pain. It was the third of such crimes in as many days, and now a report was coming in that a new victim had been found ten miles away on the south side in an industrial park, a young delivery girl, in the same state as this as of yet, unknown girl; burned and seemingly raped to death…

"This is all we got." O' Toole held up a small plastic jar half full of thick, pink tinted goo.  
Raven squinted at it, the rims of her eyes just faintly glowing; "What is it and where did you find it?"  
O' Toole made a puzzled face and answered; "That's the thing, we found it in small quantity's on her thighs and abdomen as well as in her mouth…"  
"All places that might indicate rape." Robin interjected as he looked at Raven's face then back at the goo.  
"Right, and the thing is we found it in even smaller quantity's on and in our first two vic's, but so far, my lab can't figure out what the hell it is, it may be some kind of lubricant or oil based on it's color and consistency, but it lacks the properties of either. So far we're stumped."  
"It's demonic." Raven answered as she looked at the jar, her eyes glowing before she gasped; "No..." She then turned on her heel and started to walk off, a bit slowly and as if she might tip over...

Robin excused himself and caught up with her; "Raven, what is it? You said Demonic, but what else? What are you hiding?"  
Raven turned and looked at him, her eyes pale and frightened; "Robin… I think it's my father… that's… well… "seed"… And I think it's his…"  
The boy wonder blinked at her then back at the crime scene; "Why do you say that?"  
Raven paused then spoke quietly; "There's something you need to know about demons, they have almost no power unless they can possess something. Only then can they manifest and be a threat."  
Robin shook his head; "But Raven, when we fought Trigon, he was real, he had a physical body!"

Raven held her hand up and stopped him; "Yes, because _I_ had a physical body, that's the other half of why he needed me, my body was a portal, and as he came through the portal, my body, the part which was bonded to the demonic parts of my soul, was made into a catalyst for his body or kind of skin for him, spiritual power is all he is, and that's where I get _my_ powers, and now that he's been defeated, my powers are now bonded to me and I'm now human physically and half demon in spirit only. For him to come back he'd… Damm…"

Robin stared at her; Raven almost never swore, so for her to do so would mean that she had just realized something big,  
"The clone?" He asked as he looked down the street himself and saw the late evening traffic moving down the unblocked streets a few yards away.  
"Yeah, the Clone is how he got here, but since it was a clone of me _after_ his banishment, then the clone was human, and could only be a portal… that means that Trigon would need a new host…"  
"And I bet Inferno would gladly be one if it meant killing Slade." Robin said as he turned on his heel and headed for his R-cycle.  
"Follow me, we're going to check out that other crime scene and look for clues."

* * *

"How are the patients?" Terra asked Beast Boy as he walked back into the common room, his arms full of empty food trays; "Doing better all the time, Vic's new legs came in today, so as soon as Robin and Raven get back they'll help him hook everything up so he can walk again." Terra laughed as she thumbed an itch on her jaw.  
"That's good, I don't know how much longer Vic would have been able to stand having those treads for feet." She was speaking of the small rubber treaded base that had been built originally for a service droid to help pick up around the tower, but the droid had never been finished, like many of Cyborg's spur of the moment ideas… well, other than stank ball, but Beast Boy had helped a lot with that.

BB nodded as he grabbed a soda from the fridge and sat next to his friend; "Yeah, and Mystic's arm is looking better and Blaze is up and about again, but he's still limping a bit, I think that hit to the knee he took was worse than we first thought."  
Terra nodded as she looked at her friend, a slightly wistful look on her face as she looked out the window.

"What's on you're mind Terra?" Garfield had noted the look on his friends face and he wanted to help her if she was willing (and she tended to be) and anyway, there wasn't much else to do right now…  
"Oh… well I was just… thinking…" Tara made circles on the counter with her finger and sighed.  
"What about?" Gar blinked a bit as he watched her gloved hand move, his eyes not really focusing on anything.  
"Oh…" Tara blushed slightly and bit her lip as she looked off out the window, before she looked back at her friend; _'My ex-boyfriend…'_

"Well," she said as he looked up lazily, his eyes clear, but his face blank, like he cared, but was a tad tired.  
"I was thinking… Could there ever really have been an us?"

Beast Boy started slightly, his stool creaking loudly as he shifted uncomfortably…

'_Wow… I guess I should have seen that coming but… Geez Terra…'_ Her real name was Tara Marklov, but she rarely used anything other than her nickname "Terra" as in "Terra Firma" still… _'I'm wandering!'_ Beast Boy blinked then thought good and hard about it…  
He sighed and answered softly; "I… I really don't know Terra… I mean, you where stone for almost six whole months, and then it was a year after Trigon was banished before we… _I_ saw you again... That's... That's a year and a half Terra, and now _that_ was over a year ago … Two and a half years is a long time… I've grown up a lot and... Raven always had a crush on me it seems and... Well, you left and she didn't..." He reached his hand out and rested it gently on her slender shoulder and squeezed softly, feeling the warmth through his own glove… He felt rotten, but, the simple truth was that, while he **had** _loved_ Terra, Raven was the one who had captured his heart… Ever since that first day on Titans Island, when she said she said that he was "kind of funny" he had only one goal; to make the dusky beauty laugh and smile for real, to light up a room with her soft voice... And it had grown into a kind of friendship that had but one outcome: true, honest, and forever, love...

"So that's a no huh?" Tara said as she looked at her lap, her hands resting on her knees as she sat there next to Garfield.  
Gar simply felt awful for her, but honestly, he couldn't see how it could have worked out otherwise… unless… _'No, you can't change the past, no matter how badly you may want to… or need to…'_

He shook his head as he lowered his hand and thought about that, he had once asked Cyborg to run a simulator to test a theory he had, it was based on what might have happened if his parents, Mark and Laura Logan had not died that day in Africa, if they had somehow survived or avoided the falls… The computer sim showed that Garfield's father would have one day found a way to undo the effects of the serum, changing Beast Boy's DNA back to a stable human state, thus making him a simple human boy again, and ending the crime fighting career of Beast Boy long before the Titans… Only with that, the Titans would have lost other key members because Beast Boy wasn't there to take a hit, or warn of an ambush, or to track a villain down or… Any number of things could have happened, but the one thing that was almost certain was that the Titans would have never lasted to face Trigon and as such, earth was doomed... It drove home the fact that every member of the Titans was key to the success they enjoyed, and it made Garfield glad that while, his parents where dead, he had a new family in his friends, the Teen Titans...

"Look Terra, if things had happened differently, yeah, we might have had a shot, but, you can't fight destiny _and_ fate, only fate, and anyway, I believe things workout for the best, one way or the other, simply because we never give up." He smiled and lightly punched her on the arm and laughed; "And look at it this way, I always knew Cyborg had a soft spot for you in his heart… it just took you being gone for him to snap outta it."  
Terra looked at her green friend and gave a half smile; "Really? You always thought that Vic liked me?" Beast Boy nodded and smiled; "Yup, it was easy to see at first I guess… Then after you came back, I just kinda went to mush on you."

The two friends looked at each other and memories passed between them that where bitter-sweet, and heart rending…  
"Thank you Gar… for being such a true and loyal friend… even when I didn't deserve it." Terra closed her eyes and leaned over, pulling the changeling into a warm hug which he gladly returned.

"Again?!? How can you keep pulling the perfect hole card on EVERY third draw and hit a set like that?" Destiny huffed at William as Cyborg scratched his head and then shuffled the cards again.  
"It's not every third draw Destiny, it's only the draws that I feel I can win, and it's not hard, Hold em's just knowing when to do just that, hold em', I've really only really won about half of the hands so far, but you keep falling for my bluffs and Vic just goes for it all the time… Not an easy way for you to play." He grinned at her and she rolled her eyes back at him while Cyborg got ready to deal out the cards and set it up again.  
She huffed at him again; "This is why I like five card. More work for everyone."  
"Wanna' switch it up then?" Cyborg asked as he finished shuffling the deck.  
"YES!"  
"Sure, Aces Deuces wild?" Blaze asked as Victor started to deal out the cards,  
"They better be." Destiny said as she took up her cards, then smiled…

* * *

"No question, Inferno was here." Robin said as he looked at a trail of footprints burned into the pavement and leading away, off into the woods south of Jump.  
"He must have been in a hurry, she's… she's not as bad off as the last girl." Raven's normally even voice almost cracked with suppressed emotion. It was clear that this was hard on her.

Robin nodded as he looked the girl over; she was of average height and weight, with short cut dark brown hair that was almost black. Her eyes where just like the other girl's, dark, and glassy, pain and horror etched into her soft round face…  
It was then that Robin did a double take; she had as striking resemblance to the other victim… who reminded him of someone… some one close…

"Why would Inferno start this? It's simply not his style." Raven said as she looked off at the woods, her face blank, but her violet eyes sparking with thoughts and puzzlement.

Robin then almost fell over as Raven faced him; the two girls looked a lot like Raven… High forehead and widows peak, large dark eyes with wide eyelids, small nose, small pointed chin, small pale lips… the delivery girl was being put into a body bag and Robin stopped the CSI's from moving her so he could look at her one more time. Setting his jaw and bracing himself, he gave the girl a good look, then gave Raven the same look; they had almost the exact same rounded figure: high full bust line, round wide hips and long toned legs…  
"Oh my god…" Robin ran over and grabbed Raven by the wrist and pulled her away and into the shadows of a delivery building and pushed her against the wall, his face almost braking out into panic; "Raven, he's after you... the girls look like you, have the same figure as you, and have the same features as you."

Raven rubbed her wrist and glared at him until he spoke, then she blinked as it fell into place for her...  
"We need William." She whispered, her voice low and strained as her eyes started to glow with power.  
"Yes, but Raven, why? Inferno wouldn't normally do this," he repeated as he looked over his shoulder,  
"No. But Trigon would…" Raven stated flatly, as she finished mentally contacting Blaze and Beast Boy.

"Raven, that's… Incest…" Robin almost choked on the word. He knew it was something that happened, he knew all about it, studying crimes, and those that committed them, but this... this was his friend, not some drawn picture, or statistic… Raven was one of his best friends in the whole world…  
"So? It's Trigon, he's a Demon lord, a demi… and incest is nothing new to demons… in fact, in some levels of the sprit world, it's the only way demons breed… to maintain blood lines."  
Robin shook his head; that was really bordering on TMI…

"Indeed, and it seems that to gain a loyal heir, I will need to make one that is more demon that human." The eerie dual voice was lumpy and high pitched while low and rough all at once and it sent a chill of terror down the two Titan's spines…  
"And I know of an easy way to do that..."

Turning, Robin and Raven faced a tall man in a red and black leather trench coat with long black and white streaked hair, four red glowing eyes, fangs and pale, red tinted skin, and the stench of burned flesh on him...

"Inferno…" Robin growled, his staff already coming out before Raven could stop him.  
"Not quite… Meddlesome boy!" With a hand gesture, a wave of dirt suddenly flung itself from the ground and into the boy wonder, knocking him to his knees.  
"Robin!" Raven was instantly at her friend's side, her hands glowing with ebony thought ready to block or attack in an instant should the possessed pyro-crazed villain attack again.  
"Daughter, meet your… twin…" A deathly pale, and sliver headed girl that could have very well have been her twin suddenly appeared from a dark portal in the ground…

"No…" Raven could barely believe her eyes; there was her clone, looking back at her, her slivery eyes had deep dark circles under them and she looked almost like a zombie, but she was drawing a strong, steady breath and she looked as ready to fight as Raven was…  
Robin reached for a few shock disks and as he did he pressed the panic button on his communicator, alerting the other Titans in Jump to his and Raven's location and sending second signal to Titans East, and the other members of the Teen Titans… He rightly figured that this was that bad…

He spoke softly as he sized up the now half demon, "Raven… We need to get some room here…"  
"I know…"  
"Stop." The light soft voice of the clone was calm, yet full of evil danger, her eyes softly glowing with ebony power…  
"You will stay where you are, or I will kill you Dick Grayson, slowly and painfully." Her face was blank, her voice flat and void of emotion.  
Raven looked at the clone with death in her violet eyes, "Try it…" No one, not even a clone of herself was going to hurt her friends, especially one of her best friends...  
"First Gem, you will not interfere…" with a sudden burst of dark energy, Raven was sent flying backwards into the waiting arms of the possessed Inferno...

"TITANS SCRAMBLE!" Cyborg's cybernetic eye was flashing as he was talking the others through assembling his new legs and the reactivation of his sonic cannon, as the red alert hit the Towers PA system, causing the team to dash about in a rush…  
"Gemme that power driver B! Des! Grab my new Power cell from my charging station in my room! Terra! Go and start the T-car! Starfire! Pick me up! Blaze! Hold my legs upright!" Victor was barking orders like an army drill sergeant, his voice loud and clear as he located Robin and Raven with there communicators, finding that they where on the lower south side… a good ten minuets in light traffic… if they drove… It was now time to test a little, "Modification" He had made to the T-car last month...

As he hooked his right leg up Cyborg started to plot out what needed to be done… With the level 1 red alert, there could only be a scant few villains they could be facing… And Trigon was currently at the top of that list...

"Let's move it Titans!"

"YYAHAHRGG!" Robin ducked and kicked, punched, and blocked, his staff bent double lay behind him as he attacked the Raven clone, and she countered, with all the skill and power that Raven herself would have…

"You wish for death human? I can give it to you… in many ways…"

Robin kept quiet, not wishing to hear that hollow sounding voice anymore than he had to as he tossed a handful of smoke and flash pellets at her, which she blocked with a black shield of thought…  
"NO!" Raven struggled and kicked, bit and elbowed as Inferno/Trigon carried her away from the fight, his fingernails slowly growing long and digging into her skin, his breathing hot and deep, his saliva spattering on her cloak and cheek as he spoke in that horrid dual voice; "Oh come now... You are about to be honored by me, you're father! Think of it, you will have redeemed yourself in his eyes!"

In a brief flash of thought, Raven considered how that sounded… it seemed that Inferno and Trigon where still working out who was in charge, as judged by the way they where talking… that might give her an opening if…

Her thoughts where shattered by dark laughter as she felt her body slam into the earth, knocking all the air out of her and causing her vision to spark, spin and even fade slightly...  
'_Garfield… William… where are you? I need your help!'_ her thoughts where frantic as Inferno bound her to the earth with stone and fire bonds that started to slowly burn into her skin...  
'_NO! This can't be happening! I… The one thing I never let go of… Just incase I beat the prophecy… I… NO!'_

Panic filled the young sorceress' eyes as her cloak was ripped from her body...  
"Don't worry… you'll black out from either pain or ecstasy long before it's over…"  
"Unnnghh! No! STOP!" she strained to form a shield, to move the bonds, to open a portal… _something_… _ANYTHING_…  
He then clawed the front of her leotard open, letting the cool night air hit her body, her pale skin now out in the light of dusk…  
"Hmm… My but you are just as lovely as your mother..." The lustful evil in his voice was bone chilling...

"_NO!"_

Like something out of a nightmare, a large blue flaming wolf slammed into the possessed man, knocking him away with such great force that Raven heard at least five solid cracks from the impact before he sailed through the wall of the nearest building, caving it in on him…

"BLAZE!" Raven cried as the flaming wolf transformed into a tall and very pissed off Anthro-wolf with fire in his eyes…

His voice was low and deadly as he stalked at the now staggering Inferno, Trigon's four red eyes still looking out at them:  
"Don't… Fuck… With… My… FRIENDS!" with a blast of pure holy blue flame, Inferno howled in agony as he was shot through the other side of the now wrecked business building, flaming debris following him into the far off tree line…  
"Blaze! Oh thank the gods!" Raven grabbed at her tattered cloak and draped it around her, covering her exposed form…  
"RAVEN!" Beast Boy landed almost right next to her, a frightened look on his face as he held out his hand to her.  
"Beast Boy!" Raven said as she stepped up and lay her head on his, and sobbed lightly, the shock now hitting her full force.  
"R-Robin's… In trouble… needs help…" "We know, Mystic and Star got him out just in time, Starfire and Cyborg are taking Robin to the Med wing now, while Terra, Mystic and myself are going after Inferno with Beast Boy." Blaze's voice was low and feral, his eyes still burning with heat.  
"Thank you William… I-" He held his fur covered hand up and shook his head: "I'm a Titan same as you, and Titans stick together right?" Raven nodded, and Blaze mimicked the gesture before he waved for Beast Boy to follow him, "Let's start hoofin' BB, I don't want that monster getting the chance to get his wind back." With a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek, Beast Boy left Raven and dashed after his teammate into the woods as Terra and Starfire flew overhead, while the sun started dipping below the horizon…


	21. The Crimson Night Part 2

The Titans had fanned out, slowly making their way through the woods, eyes and ears (and in Beast Boy and Blaze's cases, noses) open and searching for their adversary… However, with Starfire and Cyborg back at Titans Island with Robin, and Raven headed there herself, the leadership of the search party was in question…

"Dude, I'm telling you, we go that way, we'll get ambushed! You don't know Inferno, he's nuts, he'll do anything to win and if—"

"And if you'd let me finish Beast Boy, you'd know that now that Trigon's possessed him he's not going to act like Inferno, but Trigon, and right now Trigon want's to get as much ground between us and him as he can!"

Blaze and Beast Boy (who had rightly asserted his authority, being the most senior member in the field) stood there glaring at each other as Terra and Mystic shook there heads and checked the paths for fresh footprints at this small crossroads deep in the woods.

"Somehow I don't think that Trigon would pass up a chance to kill us either, no matter who thought of it." BB Crossed his arms and gave Blaze a steady glare, to which the angelic lycanthrope huffed; "Gar, I'm not saying that, what I'm saying is that he's not quite strong enough to beat us all just yet, and he needs time to get strong…" A mildly annoying, nine note ring-tone cut him off and everyone reached to there belts and pulled there communicators' and opened them; "Go ahead Star." Mystic answered when they saw the bronze skinned Titan's face.

"Friends I must pass on a warning, the clone of our dear friend Raven is at large, and according to Robin, she is just as powerful as our friend, please use tact and caution in the woods for Cyborg and I fear she may try the ambushing with the Trigon infested Inferno. I will join you within the next half hour, please friends, stay safe."

"Thanks for the heads up Starfire, we'll keep our eyes open." Terra said before the screen went blank.

"Oh crap… How could we forget that?" Beast Boy asked as he dropped his hands to his sides and slumped a bit while Blaze rubbed the sides of his head, in frustration; "Damm it... This gets more and more complex as we go on…"

'_It's worse than the mall'_ he didn't have to add…

--------------------------------

_"SLADE! STARTING NOW, YOU WILL PAY FOR YOUR EVIL! AND I'M GOING TO COLLECT!"_

_Twin beams of blindingly hot blue holy fire burst from his eyes and burned into every Slade-bot still standing, turning them into slag and dust where they stood..._

_Landing, Blaze stalked at the one Slade-bot still standing, one that had been hiding in the shadows... One that now stood defiantly in front of the son of rage and love..._

_A low, soft, lightly accented voice, full of death and cunning evil carried across the mall: __"Hello Blaze... I see you enjoyed my little test... Congratulations are in order, you passed... In fact, you will be pleased to know that, while I am sorry you dear friend Mystic managed to survive my trap, I now have no real interest in her, despite her appealing..."_

_"RAAAWHHH!" Blaze leapt at Slade, his hard, black claws fully extended and now glowing white hot, his eyes burning, tears of blue and white fire drifting up out of them, a trail of heat behind him..._

_"DIE YOU SICK BASTARD!"_

_Closer and closer Blaze came, time slowing to almost nothing as his claws drew closer to the mark, and still Slade stood there defiantly, mockingly… Inhumanly…_

"Foolish boy…"

Just as Blaze's claws touched his chest plate, he heard a small, sharp click and a split second later saw a blinding flash of light as his ears rang from a large explosion of sound, followed closely by a shockwave of hot air and flying bits of metal as the Slade commando exploded. The bomb in its chest detonating when it's proximity fuse was triggered by the searing body heat of Blaze. It ended up blowing a crater two feet deep into the floor, and it launched Blaze up and back through the roof of the mall and out onto the top of a near by parking garage…

Mystic had heard the Slade Commando, and despite her dizzy state, she still had the reflexes to put up a shield of thought around herself and Robin. He had covered her with his body and cape as the ear shattering roar of the bomb rocked the whole mall and pushed them a good fifty yards down the floor next to a fire exit. "Mystic! Oh damm it! Damm you Slade! Dammit Blaze!" Robin picked up the dazed and bleeding girl and carried her out the door and into the street where a J.P.D. squad car roared up sirens blasting and tires smoking…

In the end, Destiny would barely make it to the hospital and it would take a half hour to find Blaze, blind, deaf, bleeding profusely, and with most of his bones cracked, broken or shattered to the point that he sounded like a cement mixer full of rocks when he tried move. Raven ended up knocking herself out trying to help the S.T.A.R. labs doctors get him patched up enough to heal on his own...

Cyborg was found later than afternoon, missing his legs, half an arm and his systems in standby, from an ambush involving a well placed EMP charge...

It was not the best day to be a Teen Titan...

--------------------------------------

"Look guys, we need to stop beating ourselves up here and just work this out the best we can." Terra spoke calmly and openly as she knelt down and rested her yellow glowing hand to the earth, feeling for any vibrations that might lead them to there target...

Mystic nodded as she looked around one more time; "She's right, Blaze, lets go up above the trees and see if maybe one of us can spot the nearest clearing, he may be near by resting." Blaze nodded, as he looked around one more time for anything useful…

"Hey Beast Boy, give these tracks a good sniff, I think I may have something here." Terra pointed to a faint set of tracks that led into the deepest part of the woods, north, and east towards the mountainous northern parts of the Serria-Nevada's.

"Sure thing." Beast Boy walked up then morphed into a bloodhound and started to smell out the scent in the light footprints…

Above them, Blaze and Mystic where gliding around in a split finger formation (where one was above and behind the other, in this case, Mystic was behind Blaze) looking for the next clearing, when Blaze spoke; "Mystic… I gotta ask you something; don't be mad, and, please answer me honestly but… What's your honest opinion about yourself?" He looked back up at her as she held her position, her eyes looking down at the ground, searching.

"That's a… Complex question Blaze." She answered plainly, her masked face moving side to side now as she looked ahead past him; "Don't quit looking…"

"I won't…" he answered calmly as he looked back at the trees… Damm but there where a lot of them…

"Are you going to answer?"

She looked on and shrugged; "I don't really know how to answer that, I mean, do you mean me Mystic, or me Destiny or me as a girl or as a member of the Titans… That's a complex multifaceted question, can you refine it or something?"

Blaze thought about it then replied; "Okay, try this on; how do you feel about you, Destiny, AS Mystic or even just yourself?"

Destiny slowed down and William matched her speed until they where hovering in the air, there wings flapping at a faster rate, although Blaze's spirit wings where still moving at half the speed of Mystic's feathered limbs…

"I… I'm not really sure." She answered quietly. "I guess I see myself as a teen, cursed and trying to…" she bit her lower lip slightly… she knew that he could read whatever she was thinking at that time, and she tried to not think that way, but…

Will looked at her, his eyes staying their cool, calm, pale baby blue shade, not a hint of power flare in them.

So, he was going to let her say it herself…

"You know I wasn't always a hero… I used to be a normal girl, with the typical life of a street kid…" she looked away at the far off glow of Jump, her emotional aura contemplative and a bit sad…

"My mom had moved to Gotham to go to school there at Linton University but after her first year, she was short of money, and she had to take at least twelve hours or she'd lose her ride… But just that summer, her parents died and all the money that had been set back to help cover for books and food was gone, eaten up by creditors' and the funeral…" She slowly turned her back on him, the shame of what was coming was… painful: "So she looked for an extra job on campus, and she saw a flyer posted, looking for a model… But it was a trap, a cheap porn company gave her a hundred bucks just for showing, then they waved five-hundred more in front of her and told her it was hers if she let them… video her… "

Hot, sorrow filled tears started to roll down her cheeks and collect in her mask as she sniffed lightly.

"After it was done, she ran off and hid herself for almost a week before she got the last books she needed, but she was broke again after that and… they found her again and offered her a thousand to do it again…"

Mystic then broke down, bowing her head and slowly floating down to the ground, barely dodging the tree branches' as she landed heavily and then went to her knees crying softly; "She didn't want to, and she didn't like it… Some of the guys at the school saw her videos and talked about it and bullied her, then soon… One of then blackmailed her into being a whore… and… Then one day… She realized that she was pregnant… With me…"

Blaze had followed her down and was kneeling quietly in front of her, an understanding look on his furry wolfish face…

Destiny slumped into William's arms suddenly; the pain and release of telling someone her untold story made her feel better and worse all at once.

"She had died inside before I was born, even though she ran away and had me, they found her and dragged her back to Gotham, me in her arms… They where going to raise me to be a sneak thief, and a drug mule, and then… a whore… that is, if I lived long enough…"

She buried her face into his chest, his warm, strong and familiar furry chest, covered in a tough mesh weave that was both cold and warm all at once…

William was slightly surprised at her sudden outpouring, but he lightly patted her arm and held her gently as she sobbed into him…

"Wow… Des…" he shut his mouth, that was really more of an answer than he had expected, and it made him unsure what to say next, so he just held her there…

Meanwhile…

"Your sure?" Terra asked Beast Boy as he morphed back and pointed off into the trees…

"Sure I'm sure, the nose knows." He replied, a slightly grim look on his face, despite the light tone he used.

"All right, well then, you're the senor member, what do we do now?" Terra pulled her com-unit out as a clue and BB picked up on it, mimicking her and opening his unit and then thinking it out a bit; "Right we uhh… Oh yeah! We call in and tell Star and Cy where to find us!"

Terra nodded; "Want me to do it?" she offered as she looked at him questioningly.

"Sure, I'll call Blaze and Mystic in and we'll wait for-SHIT!" Beast Boy leapt and shoved Terra down just in time as a large boulder arced trough the air where she had been standing a heartbeat before, and slammed into the tree next to them, snapping it in half sending splinters everywhere…

"If that was suppose to be a joke Beast Boy, then you really are not funny…" the cold, almost hollow voice would have been comforting, had it also had a light note of warm dry sarcasm and sounded a bit more human…

But it lacked those key points and as Terra and Beast Boy jumped up, the sight of the Raven clone, in muddy, red and black cloak and robes, sent chills down there backs as they got ready to fight…

Back at the tower…

"Thanks Raven." Robin said as he worked his hand around and flexed his arm; it was as good as new.

"It's in my job description to be a living band-aid, don't rub it in." she answered dryly, a faint smile on her lips as she and Robin walked to the roof, Cyborg and Star having already left, homing in on there teammates signals when the S.O.S. sounded again; "It's Terra and Beast Boy! There under attack!" Despite the fact that he almost always stated the obvious when charging in battle, Raven always rolled her eyes as she and the boy wonder dashed to the roof where she formed a black disk of ebony thought and then raced off for the woods, Robin crouched down in front of her as they charged to there friends aid…

_In the woods…_

And there help was desperately needed when Terra was thrown into a large tree and knocked senseless by a blast of dark energy, as Beast Boy extracted himself from a wood and stone cage that had been formed around him only seconds ago…

"You two are a waste of time and breath…" The clone said as she floated over to Terra's still body. Her hands glowed black as she reached out and picked her up, and slowly started to pull on her limbs and head; "I wonder what will break off fir—" a loud "Whoosh" like noise sounded and a wave of sonically charged energy slammed into the pale girls back, slamming her to the ground…

"STAR! Hit her NOW!" Cyborg landed with a thud into the ground, his titanium size fourteen feet lightly cratered the earth where he landed as Starfire streaked down and fired off two large, carefully aimed blasts of green hued solar energy into the Clone's middle, throwing her to the earth once more, and scorching the robes off, exposing her midriff…

"Ishtar, Malfo, Trigon!" the clone chanted a dark mantra and grabbed three large trees and launched them at the Tamaranian and the Hybrid, her eyes glowing with dark power as she grabbed more to throw at them as Starfire and Cyborg dodged and blasted there way at the clone. Beast Boy had soared into the air, as an owl, homing in on her with his sharp night vision, ready to dive-bomb her, when a blast of dark red tinted flame cut him off…

"Inferno!" he gasped to himself as he morphed into a humming bird to dodge the follow up blasts the now black and white haired villain was shooting at him with his pyro-gun. "This human device is all but worthless!" Trigon ranted as Inferno kept shooting beams of fire at Beast Boy, now setting random trees on fire, adding an orange glow to the pale sliver moonlight…

The racket being made did not go unnoticed by Blaze and Mystic; they had quickly run back through the trees towards the sounds of battle, but right before they ran into the clearing, Blaze stopped Mystic, grabbing her arm…

"Wha? Blaze, let go! We have to help them!" Mystic almost cried as she pulled her hand trying in vain to break free from his firm grip.

He held his other hand up and shushed her; "SHH! Mystic! Shhh! We can get the drop on them if we hit them from two sides! Go left and then hit the clone, I'll go right and take Trigon, now go!" She nodded then dashed out before taking to the air and swooping down, hands hot and glowing with fire…

Blaze exploded out of the trees roaring, and slamming Inferno/Trigon to the ground with a hard right punch…

"BLAZE!" Cyborg yelled just too late as a dark bolt of thought slammed him to the ground, the clone having dodged Mystic's attack and countering his offensive on her "father" with an attack of her own, which opened her up to a double whammy by Starfire and Mystic as bolts of fire and solar energy smashed into the earth like tiny meteors, throwing the clone to the ground.

"Rah!" Robin yelled as he dropped down and kicked Inferno/Trigon square in the face, knocking him back again as he tried to get a shot of hyper charged plasma off, the flame gun flying off into the bushes as Raven knocked it away, knowing better than to try and dismantle it (the last time she had faced Inferno and done that, the gun had exploded) so she settled for removing it from his hand, which would have normally worked just fine, but Inferno was now super powered, and wanting to kick some ass, so no sooner had his prized weapon flown from his hands then he countered with a hard kick to his closest attackers side, then flowed with a rapid strike to Raven's neck, knocking her senseless.

"Raven!" Beast Boy yelled as he charged Inferno, morphing on the fly into a sparrow, and swooping in, and shifting to a large bear, crashing in on Inferno, and smacking him hard into a tree.

"Father!" The clone shouted as she blasted Cyborg again and then blew Starfire away into the trees with powerful bolts of telekinetic energy, even as she ducked Mystic's follow up attacks, and then grabbed the fire bending girl by the neck with a tendril of thought and started to apply pressure, choking her and making the winged Titan gasp and writhe in pain and panic as the world started to fade and grow dark, until a howling sounded in her ears and seemed to touch her very soul, even as she felt her body hit the ground and a small explosion rock the forest...

* * *

A/N:Cliffhanger much?

Bwhaha!

Hey guys, sorry its taken soo long to update!

Ive had this chapter done for some time now, but until just the last few months I had to put my writing on hold, but now Im working on the next few (and likely final) chapters, as well as the sequel to this story, as well as revisiting my other fanfiction, and some original works as well, so I hope that you all enjoy this if your still following me, and if your new to my stuff, then I hope you enjoy my humble little epic here.

In the mean time remember; _Make the audience Suffer_ ~Orson Wells


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